


By Moonlight

by Eiiri



Series: Lycanthropic Studies [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventures in Muggle Shopping, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputee!Fred, BAMF Ginny Weasley, BAMF Hermione Granger, BAMF Molly Weasley, Brief depictions/discussion of violence, Cleaning Grimmauld Place, Draco Malfoy is a Git, Draco Malfoy-centric, Draco and Sirius are Cousins and Don't You Forget It, Draco is Bad at Being Good, Era-Appropriate Homophobia (actually it's pretty mild), Everybody Else Who Died Is Still Dead and I'm Sorry, Everybody needs therapy, F/M, Family of Choice, Fantastic Racism, Fred Lives, Gen, Hermione and Draco are Friends?, Hermione is Good at Potions, Living with Consequences, M/M, Minor Bill Weasley/Fleur Delacour, Minor Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Molly Weasley is SuperMum, Molly Will Not Let You Go Unfed, Nobody Likes Draco Malfoy, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, Remus Lupin Lives, Remus Lupin-centric, Remus and Sirius have a Complicated Relationship, Sirius Black Lives, Sirius Black does DIY, Sirius Black is a Cad, They're Not Kids Anymore, This Is NOT About Harry, Visiting St. Mungo's, WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH CANON INFO ON WEREWOLVES SO I'M MAKING IT UP, Werewolf!Draco, Wolfsbane Potion, past trauma, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 42,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiiri/pseuds/Eiiri
Summary: After the Battle of Hogwarts, Remus recognizes something familiar in Draco Malfoy and offers him sanctuary.  With nowhere else to turn--his parents in prison, his home a crime scene--Draco reluctantly accepts and becomes a tolerated, if not welcome, member of his schoolyard rivals' and wartime adversaries' family of choice. As pages of the lunar calendar turn and the summer wears on, Draco and the others begin to see each other in a different light.





	1. Chapter 1

Remus Lupin staggered upright. Around him was the rubble of a ruined ceiling and the echoing, far-off feeling shouts of the now-waning battle. He felt like the world had slowed down. A drop of blood rolled down his throat from the ragged scratches on his cheek. He looked down, first at his shaking, bloody hands, then at the corpse at his feet. Fenrir Greyback, the man who had made so many years of Remus's life a living hell, lay dead on the broken floor, his hair matted with blood, flesh torn, eyes glassy and blank. The sensation of being watched pricked the back of Remus's neck and he looked up. Standing at the top of what was left of the nearest staircase was Draco Malfoy, white-faced, staring at the gruesome scene of lycanthrocide below him. For a long, tense moment they stared at each other, then the towheaded young man turned and hastened away. For Remus, time returned to normal.

 

~*~

 

Early morning sun filtered through the clouds onto the ravaged hellscape that had only a day before been Hogwarts School and its grounds. The dead of both sides were lain out in the semi-demolished great hall, waiting to be identified so they could be returned to their families and put to rest. What still-breathing DeathEaters had surrendered after their leader's death sat in a guarded classroom awaiting formal arrest—those of their comrades that had neither perished nor surrendered lay bound and unconscious in the room next door. Madam Pomfrey and others under her direction flitted among the victorious survivors, tending to the injuries they had sustained.

“You going to let anyone fix that?” a growling voice asked as the voice's owner poked Remus's cheek just above the highest of his cuts.

Remus looked around distractedly. It took him a moment to take in his friend's appearance, then once he had, a pang of fear gripped his stomach. “Sirius, why are you covered in blood?”

“It's not mine.” Sirius dropped onto the scorched grass next to Remus with a tired huff. “One of the Weasley twins got a leg blown off—had to get the bleeding to stop before we could get him more or less outta harms way last night. They've taken him to St. Mungo's, word is he'll live.”

“Thank god.” Remus closed his eyes. “Too many of us are dead.”

“Yeah,” Sirius agreed gruffly. “Why are _you_ covered in blood?”

“I—” He stopped, swallowed, and began again in a whisper. “I ripped Greyback's throat out.”

“Good. Serves him right. How are you taking it?”

Remus shook his head. “I don't know.”

“You'll be okay.”

“I hope you're right.”

“I know I'm right.” Sirius gave Remus a quick, inconspicuous kiss on the temple. “Go get somebody to fix your face.”

“Alright.” Remus returned the kiss, levered himself to his feet, and made for the nearest makeshift medical stand.

De facto nurses—many of them students—came and went, helping the injured to the stand to be checked out by whoever had some kind of medical training, or grabbing supplies—gauze, potions, bandages, balms—and hurrying off to tend to others away from the stand. Remus took a seat on the fallen column currently serving as an ad-hoc waiting room and watched Madam Hooch bark orders, apply salves, administer doses of potions, and bandage wounds. Across the stand, a head of dirty and matted but recognizably platinum hair caught his eye. Draco spotted him in turn, and made to get up and leave, but Madam Hooch scolded him, “Sit _down_ , Malfoy, or do you want to make that leg of yours worse? I told you to wait there until Madam Pomfrey comes around and can mend that. If I trusted myself to not turn you into a cripple I'd do it myself, but I don't, so sit.”

Draco muttered a, “Yes, ma'am,” and looked pointedly at the ground.

“Are you alright?” Remus asked him.

“I fell,” he spat. “I'll be fine.”

“Sure, you'll be fine—once the ankle you've just about turned to dust is mended.” Madam Hooch dismissed the Hufflepuff girl whose minor burns she'd been seeing to. “I can't believe you walked here on that.”

“It didn't hurt,” Draco dismissed.

“Probably because you're in shock.” She rolled her amber eyes. “Come here, Remus, let me see.” She tutted. “Poppy'd have you fixed up with a flick of her wand, unfortunately I lack her talents and training—bear with me.” She set about cleaning his wound.

He grimaced at the sting of the antiseptic. “I'm glad it's nothing permanent.”

“Mind your own business, half-breed,” Draco sneered.

“Come back when you've thought of an insult I haven't heard a few thousand times over the past three decades.” It didn't take much effort for Remus to sound bored. Draco bristled but stayed silent. Madam Hooch bewitched a bottle of salve and a cotton swab, which proceeded to apply itself to Remus's cheek.

The bewitched salve had just finished up and Cho Chang had paused in her important nursing scurrying long enough to tape a gauze pad over it when a clearly exhausted but determined Madam Pomfrey bustled in, sleeves rolled up and hair falling down. Within moments, she'd taken stock of Draco's ankle and mended it. “Now stay off it for a few more minutes, just until things have all knit back together, or else you might just give yourself a permanent limp.”

“Poppy?” Remus asked before Madam Pomfrey could hurry off again. “I wish I could let the dust settle before bringing such things up, but I've a rather time sensitive issue at hand.”

“Yes?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron with a sigh.

“Severus is dead, I don't know who else has the proficiency in the art to make Wolfsbane Potion, and I have until day after tomorrow to come up with a week's supply.”

“Do you _have_ to talk about that here?” Draco asked loudly with plain disgust.

“Yes, as a matter of fact he does,” Madam Pomfrey snapped. “As he just said—and as you well know—this is a matter best solved quickly. And you'd do well to learn to watch how you treat your fellows at some point, Malfoy.” She shook her head and turned her attention back to Lupin. “I'm sorry, Remus. Honestly, I'd suggest you ask Hermione Granger—she was able to brew Polyjuice as a second year.”

“I'll do that, then.” Remus gave a tight smile.

Madam Pomfrey nodded and shot a look at Draco. “Do you have everything you need?”

“If you'd let me walk,” he said icily, “I'd be fine. I can take care of myself.”

Remus gave Madam Pomfrey a curious glance, then gingerly inspected his bandaged cuts and went about his business. He returned to Sirius, shared a few words, then went off in search of Hermione, whom he found aiding in the efforts to clear the rubble of the north wing. He got her attention, they stepped to the side, and he explained the situation.

Hermione chewed her lip then reluctantly shook her head. “I'm sure I could work it out eventually, but in two days…. I don't know. Do you have _any_ left? I mean, does it even keep?”

“It keeps for a couple months stored correctly, then it starts to go rancid. I have two doses, maybe three.”

“And you need seven?”

“At least six, preferably nine.”

She frowned. “Don't you take it for a week?”

“A week leading up, then there's three days of effective full moon most months. Sometimes it's only two.”

“I see.” She nodded. “I can't believe I've never read that.” She sighed. “If you went ahead and took what you have, I would have until the sixth, maybe the seventh, to brew the rest, but—and do correct me if I'm wrong—from what I saw a few years ago I gather that the last days' doses are the most important?”

“Yes. Failure to take it once can render the whole week's regimen useless.”

“I will try. I can't promise I'll have it for you but I will do what I can.”

“That's the most I could ask of you.”

“I hate to ask but, if I can't do it, do you have a plan B?”

“Plan B is the old plan A.” He shrugged.

She gave him a quizzical look. He nodded toward the Womping Willow. She rubbed a hand over her face. “Better than no plan, at least. Do you know where Sirius is?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Do you need him?”

“He's the nearest thing we have on hand to a search and rescue dog.”

“I'll send him your way.”

“Thank you, Lupin.”

They headed back toward the crowd.

“And Hermione?”

“Hm?”

“Get some sleep at some point.”

She smiled wearily. “I'll try. You do the same.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

When he found Sirius again, the ex-con had procured roast beef sandwiches from somewhere. “Here,” he said through a mouthful, holding a sandwich out to Remus, who took it without argument.

“Where did you get these?”

“The house elves've all decided that now the battle's over they'd best get back to their usual occupations.” He took another bite of sandwich. “I for one am not inclined to argue with them. Leave that to Hermione.”

“Speaking of Hermione.” Remus touched the waxing gibbous tattoo just visible through a tear in Sirius's shirt. “They could use a search and rescue dog over at the collapsed tower.”

“Search and rescue I'll gladly do.” Sirius sighed. “I'd rather not be a cadaver dog, though.”

“I know. Fifty one gone—it easily could have been more but it's still too many.”

“I can't believe Tonks—”

“This conversation needs to wait.”

Sirius nodded. “Alright.” He patted Remus's shoulder. “I'll go help dig out the rubble. You eat and then, I don't know, vanquish some dark creatures.”

Remus rolled his eyes but took a big bite of his sandwich while he watched Sirius walk away. Once he'd finished his sandwich, he spent much of the day commanding a small fleet of his former students in ridding the castle and grounds of red caps and other unsavory beasts either attracted by or left over from the battle. By evening, exhaustion was making him so unobservant as to be useless.

“Go sleep,” Luna Lovegood ordered him gently as she shoved him in the direction of the castle. “You look like you're about to just fall over any second now. And that could be bad, it would be a horrible irony to be bludgeoned to death in your sleep by red caps the day after the fall of the Dark Lord.”

“Yes, Luna, it would be. I'm going.”

“Sweet dreams, Professor,” she said airily, curtsied, and casually blasted what was either a particularly fat cardinal spider or a very young acromantula into oblivion as she skipped back to the rest of the group.

 

After laying in a perfectly comfortable and familiar bed for almost an hour with sleep unforthcoming, Remus got up to take a walk. Roaming Hogwarts at night had long since been soothing to him and if worse came to worst he could just nick a mild sleeping draught from the mostly undamaged dungeons.

There were a few other people about—Hogwarts staff, ministry officials, Madam Pomfrey speaking intensely to a pair of witches in the bright green of the St. Mungo's uniform, Harry and Padfoot asleep together in an alcove only half under the invisibility cloak. Remus decided against waking them but did drape the cloak more fully over them before continuing his walk. He'd just about made up his mind to go raid the potions closet when he spotted Draco Malfoy—wanner and paler than ever—staring out at the lake from the miraculously still standing breezeway. Unnoticed, he studied his former student. If he were mistaken in his assumptions, he could easily make an ass of himself. Maybe he was too tired to care, maybe it was instinct, but he decided he was right.

Remus sidled up casually and leaned on the railing across from the silver-blond boy. “How long's it been?”

“What are you talking about?” Draco made an insolent show of rolling his eyes.

“How long has it been since Fenrir Greyback bit you?” Remus repeated, clearly.

Draco bristled. “Shut up.”

“There's no one here to overhear us.” Remus slipped his hands into his pockets. “It's been thirty five years for me. I know it's been less than four for you.”

Draco fumed silently before spitting out, “It's been two.”

Remus nodded. “I'm sorry.”

“I don't need your pity,” Draco spat.

“I do not pity you. I've no more incentive to pity you than I've to pity myself. I sympathize, and I am sorry.”

Draco clenched and unclenched his fists a few times. “I saw what you did to Greyback.”

“I know.” Remus looked down. “That was…one of the very few times the wolf has ever risen to the surface in me on an ordinary night. I don't regret his death, he's the sort of monster that gives the rest of us a bad name, but I am not proud of my actions.”

“Oh, so tragic.” The blond snorted.

Remus shrugged. “Just one more reason I could easily spend the rest of my life in therapy. Everyone here tonight probably could.”

“I do _not_ need—” Draco began.

Remus laughed, interrupting him. “You needed therapy four years ago, you certainly aren't any less screwed up after all that's happened since then. You're screwed up, I'm screwed up, Sirius is _really_ screwed up, Harry is almost as screwed up as Sirius. We've all lived through a war or two, screwed up is par for the course. In my life I've only ever known three people who'd gone past screwed up to actually, dangerously crazy and they all died yesterday, no one left alive is completely okay, so all that's left is screwed up wankers.”

Draco stared at him incredulously.

“We're all sick in the head, we've all been through hell, but we haven't got much choice but to keep going. Sure, you could pitch yourself over the railing into the lake, let the giant squid have its way with you, but I've always come to the conclusion that suicide is a dick move, hurts everyone you know and leaves them to clean up your mess. Believe me, I've thought about it.”

“You've gone mental.”

“I haven't slept in nearly two days, fifty one of my friends and students are dead, and I killed a man with my bare hands, is it really any surprise?”

Draco didn't answer.

Remus sighed. “What are you doing up here by yourself? Where are your friends?”

Draco made a derisive sound in his throat. “What friends?”

“Those two blokes you hang around with—Crabbe and Goyle? And your girlfriend?”

He glared at Remus. “How do you know about Pansy?”

“The same reason I've had to quit or been fired from every job I've ever had: the wizarding community is small and gossip spreads like wildfire.”

“Oh.” Draco ducked his head. “Well Pansy and I broke up, I haven't got a clue where Goyle is and I can't say I care, Crabbe's dead—doubt there's enough left of him for a funeral and I'm frighteningly unfazed by that.”

“You're probably in shock.”

Draco rolled his eyes.

“What about your parents?”

“Hauled off for questioning along with everyone else who's got the bloody Mark branded into them. Guess I'll be going home alone.”

Remus considered him a moment. “Your home is going to be under investigation. It was the Death Eaters' headquarters for quite some time, magical law enforcement is liable to turn the place upside down collecting evidence for the trials. I'd understand if you'd prefer to not stay there.”

“It's not like I have anywhere else to go.” Draco scuffed his shoe against the floor. “I'm a turncoat—no one likes me.”

“You do have a bit of a reputation for being unpleasant, which you certainly earned fairly.” Remus crossed his arms. “As I do share my home I can't simply offer for you to stay without consulting my housemates and I predict few of them would welcome you with open arms. That said, I doubt they'd challenge it if I were to offer you a room, say, three nights a month, a safe place to be, away from the intrusive presence of law enforcement while you're not feeling quite yourself—but that would require informing them of your condition.”

“You expect me to _tell_ them?”

“I don't expect anything. I'm just saying what would be necessary were you to take my offer.”

“As if I need to give them any more reason to hate me.”

“Given that they live with _me_ , they're clearly not so horribly prejudiced against werewolves.” Remus held out his hands. “Look, do you feel guilty for being a mean little shit, would-be assassin, and so on?”

Draco gave him an incredulous look. “Yes.”

“I'm handing you an opportunity to let people see you as something other than the grade school bully and the nefarious criminal. Do with it what you will.” Remus shrugged and walked away.


	2. Chapter 2

By Monday, everyone still on Hogwarts grounds had been sent home. For Remus and Sirius that naturally meant Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Joining them at the Black ancestral home were Harry, who patently refused to return to Privet Drive for any reason, Hermione, whose parents were still in Australia, and the majority of the Weasleys on account of the Burrow having been badly damaged and in need of extensive repair just be be structurally sound. Fred was still in hospital, George was spending every waking moment either minding the shop or at his brother's bedside, Arthur and Percy might as well have been permanent sticking charmed to their desks with everything going on at the ministry since Kingsley had taken the reigns, and Charlie had left the country again, but the rest of the family was settling back in as semi-permanent residents of the house.

After dinner, Hermione took over the kitchen, potion ingredients and open books spread all over the table, while Ron, Harry, and Remus watched. Remus rolled a sealed bottle of what Hermione was hoping to make between his palms, trying to convince himself to drink it. Harry, reading down the ingredient list in one of the books, gave him a sidelong glance. “You do know that two thirds of what goes into this is poisonous, right?”

“Yes. Which is why I'm not making it myself.” Remus sighed, popped the cork off the bottle with a little puff of blue smoke, frowned at it, downed the contents, and grimaced.

“Honestly, though, most of it is the sort of thing that's safe once it's cooked, anyway,” Hermione said as she crushed a handful of small, shiny beetles. “For goodness sake, there's cyanide in raw almonds, it's not uncommon for ingredients to be poisonous even when the final product isn't. The one thing that really stays dangerous is the aconite.”

“Is the what?” Ron asked.

“Aconite is the same thing as wolfsbane is the same thing as monkshood.” Remus got up to make himself a cup of tea.

Ron made a face. Harry poked at the bundle of dried, blue-violet flowers. “This plant has too many names.”

Hermione frowned at the book nearest her, flicked her wand at the wooden spoon she was using to stir so it would do so on its own, then carefully poured the crushed beetles and exactly fourteen and a half milliliters of butterbur extract into opposite sides of the caldron. She pushed her hair out of her face. “I should've started this sooner.”

“You have until day after tomorrow,” Remus comforted, setting the kettle to boil.

“What if I can't do it? Or I get it wrong?” she fretted.

“As long as I don't keel over from alkaloid poisoning,” he shrugged, “it's fine. I'm going to lock myself in the attic in any case, just as a precaution. Were we still at the school I'd be packing off to the shack. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work; it's just three more nights to add to the thousand or so behind me when I haven't been myself. I appreciate you even trying.”

“I can't believe how calm you are about all this.” Harry's forehead was crinkled with concern.

Remus gave him a tired smile. “Oh, I'm not calm. I've just gotten a lot of practice faking it. Sometimes I even fool myself, which is nice.”

Hermione made a small sound, put down her knife with more force than necessary, stalked the length of the kitchen, gave him a hard but short hug, then stalked back and resumed mincing fennel stems. Remus blinked a couple times, processing.

“Thank you, Hermione,” he said softly.

“I need to concentrate, this is complicated work,” she barked, jaw tight, eyes on her cutting board. “You all need to leave.”

“Lupin's still making tea,” Ron pointed out cautiously.

Hermione sniffed and slammed her knife down again. “This is all just so unfair! Three days ago we were at war, fighting life and death, and you don't even get a breather—you have to jump right in to worrying about the full moon and if there's anyone who can make this blasted potion because the one person you knew could was murdered. That's not right.”

“No, it's not right. But as you said, we were at war. People _die_ in wars.” Remus banged the heel of his hand on the counter. “Mothers and fathers, best friends, schoolyard rivals, teachers, children, and the only thing to do is end the damn war, which, thank God, we did. And no, I don't get a break. I'm sick, Hermione. You don't get a break from sick. Not on Christmas or your birthday, not when you're tired or when you have to get shit done. Not ever.”

The three teenagers stared at him in silence. Hermione had pressed a hand over her mouth and her eyes were over-bright. The kettle whistled. Remus took a deep breath, filled four mugs with hot water, then dropped teabags in them. He bowed his head, leaning against the counter. “I'm sorry.”

“I think we're all still stressed and burnt out and hurt,” Harry said slowly.

Remus shook his head. “I shouldn't be taking that out on you three.” He pushed off from the counter, walked over to Hermione, and hugged her. “It's not your fault, you're right it's not fair.”

She returned the embrace, then stepped back, wiped her eyes, and gestured to the table. “I should really….” She went to finish up with the fennel.

“Uh, Lupin?” Ron shifted his weight and shrugged awkwardly. “Think maybe you ought to go, you know, throw something breakable against a wall, or eat some chocolate, or get laid, or something?”

Remus sighed, retrieved his now-steeped tea, “I just may do all of that,” and left the room.

 

Wednesday evening, Remus downed a goblet of the potion Hermione had made, and grimaced. “Well, it tastes appropriate.”

“That's good,” Hermione sighed. “I'm sorry it's disgusting—”

“That's not your fault,” Remus dismissed. “I'm used to it.

“So, I guess we'll know Monday morning if I got it right.” Hermione crossed one arm across her middle.

“Sunday is the first night of full moon, so yes,” Remus agreed.

Hermione wrung her hands. “Okay.”

“Hermione?”

“Hm?”

“Relax.”

She took a deep breath. “Sorry. I just want to have done well for you.”

“I appreciate that.” He gave her a one-armed hug.

“Lupin!” Ron called down the stairs. “We were trying to redo the wallpaper up here but think there's something alive in the wall and we don't know what it is.”

Hermione bit her lip. Remus sighed. “If we're lucky, it's just a squirrel.”

“Knowing our luck, it's a basilisk.”

“I'm praying for the squirrel,” Remus said as he went upstairs.

 

~*~

 

 

Pale grey dawn light seeped into Draco's bedroom through the thin, pastel blue curtains. The boy himself was naked on the floor at the foot of his bed, curled up tightly, keeping himself from either crying or vomiting from pain through sheer force of will. He took several long breaths. The first few shook violently, but they evened. He gingerly levered himself up off the floor and crawled into bed. It wasn't even five-thirty in the morning yet. If he was lucky, he'd fall back asleep for a few hours.

But when was Draco Malfoy ever lucky?

By six-fifteen he knew he wouldn't be getting any more sleep, so he got up, put some pants on, and went to wash his face. It was still a few minutes before seven when he left the manor, past the aurors who'd been working overnight. They cast suspicious glances toward him as he passed. He steadfastly ignored them.

His mother wasn't in prison, exactly. She and others who weren't branded as Death Eaters but might as well have been were under guard in a recently magically fortified out of business motel. Draco hated the place.

“You're here awful early,” the guard at the desk commented as he checked Draco against the list of approved visitors—again.

“You think I have somewhere better to be on a Tuesday in summer?” Draco sneered.

The guard looked him over, “Guess not,” then handed him off to another guard who escorted him to his mother's inhospitable, dank excuse for a room.

Narcissa looked up as Draco was let through the metal-mesh door. She stood from sitting on her small cot and wrapped her arms around her son. “Draco.” She glanced at the guard on the other side of the door, tucked her face against Draco's shoulder facing away from the guard. “How are you?” she murmured.

Draco took a deep breath, curling his fingers in the back of his mother's plain grey dress. “I've been better.”

“Well, of course.” She stepped away from him and pulled him to sit with her on the edge of the cot. “How are things at home?”

Draco shook his head. “I'm not allowed anywhere in the house other than my own room without supervision and I'm not allowed in the dining room or the basement at all.” He sighed. “I haven't felt well the last couple nights,” he said carefully.

Narcissa took his hands. “Do you think you'll feel any better tonight?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“Being home right now, when I'm not feeling well is...uncomfortable.”

“I can only imagine.” Narcissa gently smoothed her son's hair off his forehead. “You look so tired.”

Draco nodded. He pressed his lips into a line, then put a hand over his mouth, eyes closed. His mother pulled him into a hug again. “Oh, my sweet boy….” She rubbed his shoulder. “My sweet, sweet boy…. You've been through too much.”

“I don't want to go home, Mother,” Draco whispered hoarsely.

Narcissa sighed. “I wish I could go home with you. I wish I knew where else you could go, and still be safe.”

Draco hesitated. “I might be able to stay where Grandfather grew up.”

Narcissa leaned away to look at him, confused. “You grew up in the same house your father and grandfather did.”

“Not Father's father.” Draco wrung his hands in his lap and stared at them. “Yours.”

“Oh.” Narcissa shook her head. She tucked her hair back behind her ear. “I don't know how well you'd be welcomed there.”

“Not well,” Draco bit out. “But, I was sort of invited.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember that one professor I had, the one who resigned?”

Narcissa nodded slowly with a look of understanding.

“He said I could, maybe, stay with my cousin—if I wasn't feeling well.”

“And you accepted?”

Draco looked away. “No. And I don't know how to get there, but you know where the house is, you stayed there as a little girl.”

“I did, but, Draco—“

“Can you give me directions?”

“I—” She shook her head, went to the flimsy desk under the window, and took out a sheet of parchment and a tattered quill. “I can get you to the neighborhood, but you'll have to find the right house yourself. You might not want to go until you're feeling better, though.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

 

~*~

 

“Hey?” Ginny called uncertainly to anyone within earshot. She was peering out the narrow window next to the front door. “Draco Malfoy is sitting outside in the courtyard. He looks sick. Should we be worried?”

In an instant, Ron, Hermione, and Harry were crowded around her, craning to see Malfoy.

“What's he doing here?” Ron asked, distaste plain in his voice.

“He can't know the house is here, can he?” Harry looked to Hermione.

“He shouldn't be able to, no.”

Remus came up the hall behind them, still looking tired. “Let me through, I'll deal with him.”

The teenagers gave him confused and dubious looks but stepped away from the door to let him out. Remus shut the door behind him as he exited. The moment he stepped down from the stoop, the gaunt-faced boy sitting in the courtyard noticed him and stood. Remus plastered a smile on his face and strode toward the blond. “Good afternoon, Draco.”

Draco's face contorted as though he wanted to say something nasty and was fighting with himself not to. Finally, when Remus was only a step away from him, he said quickly and quietly, “The last three nights were awful, I think the aurors are starting to think I'm up to something, insane, or both, I don't have any more potion, I'm sorry for being a jackass and shooting down your very generous offer, please let me stay here next month.”

Remus waited for Draco to lift his eyes from the cobblestone and meet his gaze before he answered. “Sure.” He gestured to—what looked to Draco like—the gap between numbers eleven and thirteen. “Come inside and tell everyone you're a werewolf.”

Draco flinched bodily, glanced anxiously at where the house was supposed to be, and crammed his hands into his pockets. “I can't.”

“Then I guess you can't stay here.” Remus shrugged. “I won't make you tell anyone, I can't _make_ you do anything without using magic I refuse to resort to. But I don't have sufficient reason to insist you be allowed to stay if they don't know why. It's up to you: tell them, or find another haven.”

Draco looked at him with wide, panicked, grey eyes. “Where else is there?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

Draco dragged his hands roughly through his hair, paced several steps away, aimed a vicious kick at a pebble which sent it skittering across the courtyard, then turned back, and threw his hands up in defeat. “Alright, I'll tell them.”

Remus nodded, “C'mon, then,” and showed Draco into the house.

Almost the entire population of number twelve was crowded into the foyer when they came inside and there was an immediate barrage of questions, many of them angry.

“Quiet down, quiet down!” Remus shouted over the noise, using his teacher voice to great effect. When he'd been heeded, he said, “Draco has something to tell all of you.”

Every pair of eyes on him, Draco fidgeted. He took a deep breath, stared at the threadbare but once lush carpeting, and said, “After what happened at the Department of Mysteries, as a punishment for my father, I, uh—the Dar—You Kno—” He took a shaky breath. “Fenrir Greyback was set on me, so I'm a—I'm like him now.” He jerked a thumb toward Remus.

There was a long silence. Hermione was frowning deeply, worrying at the hem of her shirt. Ron gave a derisive snort, “You're joking.”

Remus arched an eyebrow at him. “You think I'd go along with a joke like this?”

“No, I—” Ron floundered. “Sorry.”

Sirius gave Remus a questioning look which Remus answered with a look of his own and a very slight nod. After another long stretch of silent staring, Draco suddenly rolled up his left sleeve and held out his arm to show the grisly bite scar just below his elbow. He didn't say anything, just set his jaw and looked defiantly at a spot on the wall. Ginny put a hand over her mouth; Harry put an arm around her. At the back of the group, Fleur turned and walked away.

“I've offered him safe haven here the nights of the full moon and he will have that. Anything more I won't insist on. On that note,” Remus prodded Draco toward Hermione, “I suggest you start groveling.”

“What?” Draco asked, confused.

Hermione crossed her arms. “I'm the only person you know who knows how to make Wolfsbane Potion. At least the only one you know not currently awaiting trial for war crimes.”

Draco blanched. He glanced desperately at Remus but received no support so he faced Hermione again. “You are actually really very smart. And pretty. Uh. Weasley should consider himself extraordinarily lucky.”

She settled her weight into her hip. “I'll _think_ about making it for you.”

“I think that's everything until June ninth, so you can go home.” Remus clapped a hand on Draco's shoulder. “ _Unless_ you're allowed to stay.” He looked pointedly at Sirius.

Sirius held his hands up. “I didn't go to school with the little shit.”

“I think,” Harry started, “he can stay. _If_ he gets to work on paying reparations for being a vile git for seven years, among other things.”

“How do I go about that?” Draco asked.

“Well,” Ginny shrugged, “Fred's coming home from hospital today. You can let him throw dungbombs at you.”

“I...probably deserve that,” Draco conceded.

“You _definitely_ deserve that,” Ron corrected.

Sirius waded through the small crowd in the direction of the kitchen. “Guess I ought to tell Molly we're having another person for dinner.”

Draco stared after him. “What?”

Ginny grinned toothily. “Fred's coming home for dinner.”

“Oh.”

“Since you're here anyway,” Hermione said pointedly, “and it'll be a couple hours before Fred gets here, why don't you come help with the bundimun infestation in the attic?”

“Uh.” Draco didn't feel he was in much of a position to refuse so he said, “Alright. Is there somewhere I can hang my jacket?”

Remus opened the coat closet.

It was around five and Draco had just finished meticulously ridding his trousers of filth and rips when there was a loud commotion downstairs. He cautiously made his way to a landing on the stairs where he could see the entryway. Fred—looking a little grey and thin—was leaning heavily on his twin brother but beaming as he was hugged by one person after another.

“We're so glad to have you back, dear.” Molly took her son's face in her hands and kissed his forehead.

“And as a coming home present,” Ron said dramatically, “you get a Malfoy guinea pig.” He gestured up the stairs at Draco, who hadn't realized he'd been noticed.

Fred blinked at him. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Apparently waiting for you to throw dungbombs at me.” Draco sighed. “Reparations for nearly a decade of being a terror.”

“Are you serious?” Fred and George asked as one. “Why?”

Draco closed his eyes. “Can someone please explain for me?”

“He's a werewolf now,” Harry said simply. “Lupin says he can stay here on the full moon. And he's trying to suck up to Hermione so she'll make him Wolfsbane Potion.”

The twins glanced at each other then grinned wickedly. “Drawing room,” they said, indicating a door off the landing Draco was sitting on. George helped Fred hobble up the stairs, settled his twin on a sofa, then produced an orange cloth sack from thin air, which he and his brother dug through for a moment.

“Eat this.” Fred held out a bright pink, candy-like lump.

Draco took it cautiously. “What will it do to me?”

Fred grinned. “Possibly nothing.”

With a look of extreme trepidation, Draco ate the lump. “Auhg, this is vile.”

“We haven't worked out flavoring it—” George began.

“—but it worked!” Fred said triumphantly. He pointed at the mirror on the far side of the room.

Draco looked. His hair was violently pink. His face fell. “How long does this last.”

“No idea!” The twins laughed.

The next thing they gave him to try had Draco coughing great billowing clouds of blue-black smoke. The testing continued—Draco trying out every harebrained, ridiculous, or disgusting thing the twins threw at him—until Remus leaned in, “Alright, enough torture in the name of R and D. Time for dinner.”

Draco muttered a “thank god” and smoothed down his no longer pink hair while George helped Fred gingerly to his feet.

Down in the kitchen, Draco sat himself at the corner of the table, gladly allowed himself to be ignored, and picked at the bowl of chicken stew in front of him. It was strange watching the Weasleys and the others: talking, laughing, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley reaching out to touch their son's hands, George glued protectively to his brother's side, Fred rolling up his pantsleg at his little sister's prompting to show off his prosthetic, Fleur fussing bilingually over her husband and brothers-in-law and how brave they all are. Acting like a proper family.

“Aren't you hungry?” Mrs. Weasley snapped, breaking Draco out of his musings. “You've always been built like a scarecrow but I swear the past few years you just get thinner every time I see you. Eat!” She aggressively ladled more stew into his bowl.

“Um.” Draco found himself lost for words.

“Molly,” Remus said placidly, “I doubt Draco is feeling entirely well. Let him be.”

“You're too thin, too. You know that?” She glared at him.

“Yes, Molly. You tell me regularly.”

After dinner, Remus walked with Draco to the foyer. Draco opened the closet to retrieve his jacket.

“You could go by flue,” Remus offered.

Draco shook his head. “I'll just step out and apparate.”

“Alright then. If you come by on the first, Hermione'll've made our potion by then.”

Draco nodded shortly, buttoned his jacket, and let himself out.

 

Later that night, Remus sat himself on the drawing room couch next to Sirius with a cup of tea. “Morning.”

“Morning. Can't sleep either?”

“Nope.” Remus sipped his tea. “But when have either of us ever had normal sleep schedules?”

Sirius laughed. He sank down in the couch cushions and groaned. “This house is a disaster.”

“It's better than it was in ninety-five.”

Sirius shook his head. “Not by much. One thing gets fixed, something else falls apart. Half the rooms still aren't comfortably habitable, five of them are still closed off. Have you seen the slime in that third floor guest room?”

“Yes.” Remus grimaced. “It smells disgusting.”

“We should do something about that.” He sighed. “Should fix up the kitchen better, too. Any time Molly's here so much cooking happens.”

“We can rope the kids into fixing things up.” Remus leaned his head on Sirius's shoulder. He held up his teacup, Sirius took it, and drank.

“We've got, maybe, two hours 'til sunrise,” Sirius mused.

“Are we going to try to get some sleep?”

“We could.” Sirius stretched to set the teacup down. He wrapped his arms around Remus and kissed at his neck. “Or we could do something else.”

Remus laughed and pulled away, reaching to take his tea back. “We should sleep.”

Sirius huffed dramatically and flopped back across the couch, back of one hand to his forehead. “I guess I'll just have to survive without your magnificent man noodle.”

“Sirius!” Remus nearly spat out his tea, laughing. “No!”

“Anything to make you laugh.” Sirius winked.

Remus shoved his shoulder then stood. “I'm going back to bed.”

“Can I come with you?”

“If you'll actually sleep.”

“Okay.” Sirius chuckled and followed him out of the room.


	3. Chapter 3

That weekend, Harry was on his way back upstairs with a bucket of cleaning supplies when the doorbell rang. Harry went to the door, set the bucket down, and looked out the peephole. He opened the door. “Malfoy?”

“Afternoon, Potter,” Draco said stiffly.

“What are you doing here?”

Draco fidgeted. “I thought you all could still use help, cleaning, and things.” He nodded at the bucket on the foyer floor behind Harry. “Looks like you could.”

“There's something slimy in one of the upstairs rooms that's immune to scouring charms,” Harry said slowly. He eyed Draco skeptically. “So we're having to wash the walls by hand.”

Draco shrugged. “In that case I'd think you'd want as many hands working as you've got.”

“Sure,” Harry said uncertainly. He stepped back to let Draco in, then picked up the bucket and closed the door while Draco hung up his jacket.

Harry led the way upstairs and down the hall, toward the room with the mysterious slime. Molly stepped out into the hall, a scarf tied around the lower half of her face. “Who was at the—” She pulled down her scarf. “Oh, Draco. I didn't think we'd be seeing you for another couple weeks.”

“Thought I'd lend a hand.” Draco glanced at Harry. “I'm supposed to be making an effort to be less of a git, after all.”

Molly pulled down her scarf, planted her hands on her hips, and frowned at Draco. “You're going to ruin your clothes. Ron!”

“Yeah?” Ron appeared in the doorway. He spotted Malfoy and sneered. “What're you—”

“Ron, you and Draco are about the same size,” Molly pointed out. “Lend him something to wear that you wouldn't mind getting ruined.”

“But—” Ron protested. Molly scowled and Ron relented. “This way, Malfoy,” he muttered.

Draco glanced back as he followed Ron to his room—Harry wasn't in the hall anymore but Molly gave him a firm nod. He lingered awkwardly just inside Ron's doorway while the redhead rummaged through his clothes. He handed Draco a pair of tattered jeans and a faded shirt then kicked the door shut. Draco looked at the door, the clothes, then Ron. “You're not going to watch me change, are you?”

“I'm not leaving you unsupervised.” Ron crossed his arms.

Draco glowered, turned away, and kept reminding himself, _Weasley played quidditch, this is just like quidditch_ , while he changed clothes, doing his best to shield his scarred arm from view with his body. The jeans were a little long, but the borrowed clothes otherwise fit.

He and Ron went back to the room with the mysterious, scouring charm-proof slime. Most everyone in the house seemed to be chipping in. Hermione and Fleur both had scarves tied over their hair—everyone had a scarf or bandana over their noses and mouths. The walls were covered with a translucent, greyish, greenish ooze that had also spread to the perimeter of the floor. Both twins were sitting on the floor, scrubbing the boards, a bucket of soapy water between them. One of them had a leg out stiffly. Draco guessed _that_ one was Fred.

Remus held a bandana and scrub brush out to Draco, the corners of his eyes crinkled with a hidden smile. “We appreciate the help.”

Draco made a face that was probably the bastard child of a grimace and a grin, tied the proffered bandana around his face, took the brush, dunked it in the nearest bucket, and set to scrubbing the wallpaper.

After what felt to Draco like an eternity—by which time his arms hurt and he'd managed to clear about four square inches of goo—Hermione stepped back from the wall where her own clean patch had grown to about a square foot, dropped her brush in a bucket, and put her hands up, clasping her wrists over her head. “This isn't working. We need stronger cleaners. I'm going to a muggle store, getting something industrial and gloves. And maybe actual masks. Who wants to come with me and carry my shopping?”

“I will,” Draco volunteered quickly.

She arched an eyebrow at him while Harry, Ron, Ginny, and the twins shot him distrusting glares.

“Okay,” Hermione said slowly.

“What?” Ron demanded incredulously.

She shrugged, took off her face scarf, and gestured at the wall Draco had been washing. “He's a spoiled rich brat who I doubt's ever really had to scrub anything before in his life. He's even less useful here than you are. He's more good to all of us helping me.” She headed for the door. “C'mon, Malfoy.”

He hurried after her, abandoning his brush and cramming his bandana in the back pocket of his borrowed jeans. He caught up with her on the stairs.

“Hope you're not offended by being called a spoiled rich brat,” she said frostily.

He hesitated. “Well, it's sort of true so…. I'm going to change the subject now.”

“Okay.” She stepped off the bottom of the stairs. “To what?”

“Wolfsbane Potion?” he said uncertainly while she redid her hair scarf in front of the hall mirror into something more fashionable than protective.

“Uh-huh?”

“Have you thought about it?”

“Still thinking.” She hummed musingly. “It's an awful complicated, tricky potion—a lot of work—and some of the ingredients are rather obscure and expensive, and do you have any idea how many times you've called me 'mud-blood'?” She looked up at him sharply.

Draco cringed. “No, I honestly don't and I'm terribly sorry and I have no idea how to make up for that, I'm rubbish at being nice and I'm rubbish at apologizing, I haven't got much practice with either. I can pay for time and materials, though, just please, I don't want to go through that.”

“I don't want your money, Malfoy. That's not the point.”

“Please.”

She crossed her arms.

“ _Please_ , Granger.” He hesitated then whispered. “I'm scared.”

She stared at him, stunned.

“Look, I will pay you, I'll give you every single book in my house, I'll—I don't know—let you punch me again. Just please—fuck—” He angrily scrubbed a hand across his eyes which were beginning to tear. “Please don't make me go through that.”

“Draco,” she said softly and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Of course I'm going to make it. I have to make it for Lupin anyway, it's not so terribly much trouble to double everything. I wouldn't do that, not even to you. You're a brat, so I decided to let you sweat, but you're not evil, you don't deserve to be stripped of your humanity like that. I'm going to take you up on those books though.” She took her hand away. “And don't tempt me about that punch.”

“Thank you,” he breathed.

“Thank me with good behavior.” She grabbed her purse from the coat closet, held open the door, and followed him out.

They caught a bus. Draco kept looking around uncomfortably and hovered near Hermione.

“Quit that,” she chided. “Normalcy doesn't bite.”

When they got to the store, Hermione took a muggle coin from her purse, and used it to unlock a trolly. She gestured between Draco and the trolly. “Push and follow.”

He did as told, keeping a wary eye on everything and everyone in the store. Hermione dropped a pack of thick yellow gloves in the trolly and huffed at Draco. “I'm not sure which is worse, your disdain and distrust, or Mr. Weasley's unbridled enthusiasm.” She picked up a spray bottle, read the back of it, and muttered, “At least you just strike anyone around us as a prick rather than actively crazy.”

He rolled his eyes and resisted the impulse to say something vitriolic. Instead, he leaned on the trolly and picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of his borrowed shirt. When they went to pay, he distracted himself with the muggle candies near the till while Hermione chatted pleasantly with the clerk.

“I sure hope your boyfriend isn't usually such a sourpuss, love.”

“He is _not_ my boyfriend,” Hermione said firmly.

The clerk looked embarrassed. “My mistake. Just don't usually see people buying cleaner together if they don't live together.”

“We're schoolmates,” Draco said.

“Just helping with a friend's renovation project. Old family house. It's frightening.” Hermione picked up the shopping bags, shoved them on Draco, and retrieved her coin from the trolly.

“Good luck!” the clerk called after them as they left.

When they got back to Grimmauld Place, Hermione passed cans of foaming cleaner out. “Spray this on the goo, let it sit for fifteen minutes, then scrub it off. Wear gloves. I'm going to go shower, then pack for my visit to my parents.”

George narrowed his eyes at her. “It really seems like you're avoiding work.”

She shrugged. “Other than me, Harry's the only one who could have made that store run and he's the least useless out of all of us at cleaning by hand.”

“That's true,” Harry admitted, shaking his can of foam cleaner.

It took a few more hours, but they were able to remove the slime. It took destroying the wallpaper, but the paper was hideous and needed to be replaced anyway. Draco excused himself before Molly could insist he stay for dinner, changed back into his own clothes, and left with instructions from Lupin to come back June first to pick up his potion.

 

~*~

 

The night of the new moon was quiet. Hermione was still in Australia visiting her parents. The Weasley twins were spending the night at their shop. Everyone else had gone to bed. Remus had tucked himself up in the window of his room, overlooking the courtyard. He had a book in his lap, but he wasn't reading it. He heard the door open behind him, then close, footsteps crossed the room, then a pair of strong, tattooed arms wrapped around him. He leaned back against Sirius's chest. “Hey, Pads.”

“Hey.” Sirius kissed Remus's hair. “Come to bed with me.”

Remus sighed and closed his eyes. “I'm not really in the mood, Sirius.”

Sirius snorted, tossed the book out of Remus's lap, and pulled him around to face him. “What are you worrying about?”

Remus blinked at him. “I don't—”

“You're a worrier, Moony.” Sirius took Remus's hands and rubbed his thumbs over his knuckles. “There's always something.”

Remus hung his head. “I'm worried about Draco.”

“That bullying tit?” Sirius said incredulously. “He seemed fine last week, spontaneously volunteering himself for manual labour.”

“He's not just a bully. He's a person, a kid. And he's been through hell. The fact he even came here last weekend—he's not exactly friends with anyone in this house, but it's a haven for him. He might not be liked here, but everyone here knows the truth about him and doesn't dislike him any more for it.”

“Guess that's true.” Sirius got up and sat on the edge of Remus's bed.

“He's a bad age for what he's going through.” Remus leaned his elbows on his knees.

“Whadyu mean?”

“By all accounts, I'm remarkably well adjusted.” Remus held his palms up. “Other werewolves have told me that they don't know how I ever manage to hold onto a job, and more than one's chalked it up to how young I was when I was bitten. He was sixteen, he'll be eighteen next Friday. Being a teenager is hard enough without having to re-learn how to exist within society.”

“Yeah, but he's got you on his side, I have a sneaking suspicion he'll be okay. You, though, are stressed out. And—” he pulled his shirt aside to look at the tattoo below his collar bone, which tonight was a black circle ringed by pale grey “—after tonight, you're only going to get more stressed as the cycle goes on.” He got up and took Remus's hands again. “So, I think you should come to bed with me.” He pulled Remus to his feet.

“Sirius—”

“C'mon, Moony.” He grinned tugged Remus forward and hooked his fingers into his beltloops

“Okay, okay,” Remus laughed softly, kissed Sirius, and shoved him toward the door. “Your room.”

 

~*~

 

June first, Draco returned to Grimmauld Place. He rang the bell and waited on the stoop for someone to let him in. When the door opened, it was Fleur standing behind it, long whiteblond hair pulled up in a messy bun, the sleeves of her dress pushed up. “'Ello, Malfoy.”

He nodded to her. “Afternoon.”

She stepped back. He stepped in. She shut and locked the door. “'Ow are you doing?”

“I'm fine.” He shot her a confused look.

She laughed. “What? Should I not talk to you? Go.” She waved a hand down the hall. “Hermione is in the kitchen. Talk to 'er.”

Draco glanced after her as she mounted the stairs, but then obediently made his way down the hall to the kitchen. Hermione was there, cleaning up potion making paraphernalia strewn across the table. She looked up. “Afternoon, Malfoy,” she said civilly.

“Afternoon, Granger.”

She grabbed two repurposed scotch bottles and held them out to him. “Here you go, one week's worth of Wolfsbane potion. Nevermind the bottles, they're a good size and they were on hand.”

Draco took them and quietly said, “Thank you.”

“Now, this is only my second time making it, and Lupin said it was a little weak last month. I don't know in practical terms exactly what 'a little weak' means, he didn't explain, but this batch ought to be better.”

Draco turned one of the bottles over in his hand, watching the slightly iridescent liquid move inside. “I don't know what that would mean either.”

She shrugged. “Well, see you next week.”

“See you.” He turned to go.

“And, happy birthday, Malfoy.”

“What?” he asked sharply, turning back.

“You're turning eighteen on Friday, right?” She bounced a little on her feet. “Someone wrote it in the calendar.” She nodded toward a paper calendar hanging from one of the cabinets. Sure enough, _Draco Malfoy's 18_ _th_ _birthday_ had been scrawled across the square for Friday, June the fifth.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Thank you. See you next week.”


	4. Chapter 4

The door to Remus's room creaked open, then clicked closed. Sirius crawled up next to Remus where he was reading on the bed, wrapped his arms around his shoulders, and kissed his cheek. “Hey.”

Remus grinned and returned the kiss. “Hey.”

“Blondy's here and Molly's finished making dinner,” Sirius said quietly. “Come down and eat.”

“Alright.” Remus dogeared a page in his book, got up, and followed Sirius downstairs. Halfway along the hall to the kitchen, he stopped, turned, and looked at Sirius. “We should tell them.”

“Tell them what?” Sirius chuckled.

Remus sighed. “About us.”

“Hate to break it to you, Moony, but I'm pretty sure they know.”

“Even if they do, at some point we ought to make it official.”

“Alright.” Sirius shrugged, strode down the hall, and stepped into the kitchen. “Remus and I are shacked up,” he announced loudly.

“That is _not_ what I meant!” Remus hurried after Sirius.

Everyone in the room was staring at Sirius. Harry, Ron, Percy, and Draco all looked dumbstruck—most of the rest were fighting back grins. Fleur glanced confusedly between the two men in the doorway. “Were we not supposed to already know that?”

Sirius crossed his arms and lolled his head around to look at Remus. “I told you.”

“Hang on”—Ron raised a hand as though he were in class—“ _what_?”

Hermione sighed, shook her head, and resumed eating her potatoes. Ron looked to Harry, who shrugged and shook his head. “I had no idea. I also never thought about it, so....”

Molly smiled indulgently at Remus. “Don't tell me you really thought it was a secret, dear. With all of us in such close quarters here in ninety-five, I think everyone older than sixteen worked it out.”

George coughed quietly. “There may have been some, how'd you put it Fred?”

“Scintillating.”

“Yes, _scintillating_ discoveries when we were testing the Extendable Ears.”

Remus went very red. Sirius laughed, steered him to an empty chair, and sat next to him. “I don't know why he's so shocked, same thing happened when we were teenagers. Dinner smells wonderful, by the way, Molly.” He started loading up both his and Remus's plates.

“You're gay?” Draco asked with more of a sneer to his voice than he'd really meant, which earned him a smack to the back of his head from Ginny.

“No,” both men answered at once.

“As about half the female population of Leipzig can attest,” Sirius added smugly.

“Sirius,” Remus said.

“Yes, dear?” Sirius grinned.

“Stop talking.”

Sirius laughed but said nothing more. Remus took a deep breath and looked around at Hermione. “How are your parents? Haven't had much of a chance to talk about your visit.”

“Oh, they're still a little miffed about the memory charm, but they do understand.” She stabbed a potato with her fork. “Last time I saw them, they told me about some of the wild things the weather and fauna do in Australia, and I hardly believed them. This past time I went, though, while I was there we saw a fire tornado.”

“A what?” Ginny looked alarmed.

“A tornado made of fire.” Hermione shook her head. “They're unbelievable. No magic involved at all. Apparently they're relatively common during summer. Of course, it's winter just now in Australia, so the one I saw was unusual.”

“Australia's mental,” Ron muttered. Hermione nodded quickly.

“Just be careful when you visit,” Molly admonished gently, then suddenly glared at Draco. “Malfoy, are you eating?”

“Yes.” He held up a full spoon of beef stew.

“Good. You clearly don't get fed properly. I suspect it contributes to your behavior.”

Draco blinked. “I feel like I ought to be offended.”

“No point.” Sirius refilled his goblet. “Narcissa isn't any sort of chef and she never has been and if you try to defend your mother's cooking I will start pulling out childhood tales of her nearly burning houses down trying to make tea.”

“My cousin's done that,” Harry said flatly.

“Your cousin could probably find a way to burn a house down making cereal.” Ron made a face. “The great porky buffoon.”

Harry snorted then started laughing. Ron joined him, then the twins did. Hermione managed to glare at them disapprovingly for a full two seconds before Sirius started guffawing and she unwillingly dissolved into giggles.

After dinner as Fleur and Molly companionably cleared away dishes, Remus poured two smoking goblets of potion and held one out to Draco. “Cheers.”

Draco rolled his eyes but knocked his chalice against Remus's before downing its contents. He nearly gagged. “Does this ever get less disgusting?”

“Sadly,” Remus sighed, “no.”

“So, uh,” Draco fiddled with his goblet, “what do we do now?”

“Well, moonrise is still a couple hours off, so kill time.” Remus shrugged. “After that—has anyone shown you what room you're staying in?”

“The one at the top of the stairs?”

“Right. You're welcome to wander the house, after. Though some of the portraits are liable to give you dirty looks.”

“Why would I ever want to leave my room like that?”

Remus shrugged. “I get hungry.”

Draco gave him a horrified look.

“Not like that! Good lord….” Remus rolled his eyes and ran a hand over his face.

 

At a quarter 'til midnight, Draco retreated to the room he'd been allotted. He locked the door, considered bespelling it so it couldn't be unlocked, decided against it, then cast a sound-proofing charm on the room. He set his wand aside, carefully undressed—folding each article of clothing and setting it neatly on the mattress—wrapped himself in an already moth-eaten blanket, and sat on the floor to wait. He hated the wait before moonrise, nothing to do but dwell on what was about to happen. He closed his eyes and tried—unsuccessfully—not to think.

The transformation itself was miserable, as always. Draco lay, panting, tangled in the blanket he had defiantly torn, face pressed uncomfortably against the floor. As the fog of agony receded, he became hyperaware. The sound of his own panting breaths were loud in his ears and the smells of the room—dust in the rug, clean linen, decades of wood varnish, the warm musk of old leather, the mustiness of the old blanket, the turpentine bite of the polish on his shoes, his own skin and fur—assaulted him. He blinked his eyes open and was momentarily disoriented by the still unfamiliar way his wolf eyes perceived color. He wanted to retch.

It took a lot of effort to convince himself to untangle himself from the blanket. A rip caught on his paw and wouldn't readily shake off. In a fit of frustration he bit and clawed at the offending bedding, shredding it to strips before throwing himself down on the floor with a whump. He stayed there until hunger gnawing at his stomach prompted him to figure out how to unlock his door without thumbs.

 

~*~

 

Draco hesitated on the threshold of the kitchen. Ron and Hermione were inside—he could hear them talking, _smell_ them through the door—and he'd really rather not be seen. But he was starving. He hadn't eaten well since breakfast, anxiety driving away his appetite as it had thrice a month for the past two years. He'd never dared venture out of his room on the full moon before, but Remus had told him he could here—and he _wanted_ to believe it would be alright. And they'd reheated stew from dinner and it smelled _incredible_.

Ron made a pun about carrots and Hermione giggled. Draco licked his chops, nosed the door open, and slunk in. Both Hermione and Ron were in their pajamas, sitting on the end of the dining table while they chatted. They looked around at Draco in surprise but, Hermione at least, recovered quickly. She smiled at him. “Evening, Malfoy. Looking for a midnight snack, too?”

His ears pricked up and he licked his nose.

“I'll take that as a yes.” She hopped down from the table and set to dishing him up a bowl from the pot on the stove.

Ron frowned at him in a way that prompted an urge to growl but then, before Draco had worked out whether or not to give into that instinct, he said, “Is it cool to be able to lick your own nose?”

Draco shot him as scathing a look as he could muster without eyebrows, then padded over to where Hermione had obligingly set his bowl on the floor and resolutely ignored them both while he ate. When he'd finished, he carefully clamped the edge of the bowl between his teeth, crossed the kitchen, and reared up, front paws on the counter, to drop the dish in the sink.

“Draco,” Hermione said cautiously.

He shot her a questioning glare.

“You have gravy all over your face.” She reached hesitantly for a kitchen towel. “Mind if I help…?”

He made a short sound in his throat, then sat down on the masonry floor, head raised proudly, and waited. She picked up the towel, dampened it, then knelt in front of him and gently washed his muzzle. When she was done, she folded her hands in her lap. “There, much better.” She smiled. “You know, you're really very beautiful like this.”

“Actually, you really are,” Ron agreed. Draco growled at him. The redhead put his hands up defensively. “Hey, at least being a part time Whitefang impersonator has gotta be more dignified than being The Amazing Bouncing Ferret, right?”

Draco snorted and stalked out of the kitchen.

 

~*~

 

Breakfast the next morning was quiet and rather tense, the dark cloud of mid-moon-cycle gloom hanging thickly over the table while Remus and Draco—both sunken eyed and sullen—wordlessly shoveled eggs into their mouths at opposite ends of the table. Between them along the length of the table sat Harry, Hermione, Ron, Fleur, Bill, and Sirius. Only Sirius was behaving normally, waxing eloquent about American made motorbikes—Bill and Fleur were subdued but still spoke, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all remained uncomfortably quiet. Halfway through her plate, Hermione put her fork down with a sharp _tack_ and looked to either end of the table. “Is it even worth asking if the two of you are alright?”

Draco barely spared her a glance. Remus slowly set his fork down. “Hermione, have you ever broken a bone?”

“Yes. I broke my arm when I was nine.”

“You remember how that felt, and the ache of it as it healed?”

“Yes.”

“And have you ever been so ill or had enough too much to drink that the whole world feels too loud and too bright and you can feel your pulse behind your eyes?”

Hermione had gone rather pale. “Yes.”

“And you know how it itches when hair grows in?”

“Yes.”

“That itch, all over our bodies, that pain all at once in every bone in our bodies—once at moonrise, then waking up to it again at sunrise and feeling horribly hung over. And knowing we'll go through it all again tonight, and the night after that—then three nights next month, and the month after that, and every month after that _until we die_. That is how alright we are.” He took up his fork and resumed eating. Hermione pushed her plate forward.

“Don't mind him.” Sirius pushed her plate back toward her. “If you go on a hunger strike every time he's ornery you'll starve to death.”

“You can go longer than three days without food.” She reluctantly picked her fork up. “Actually, you can go three weeks without eating.”

“Hermione,” Harry said, having caught the glare Draco had leveled at her. “I don't think now's the best time.”

“Sorry….” She stabbed limply at a sausage.

“I am going to make a cake,” Fleur announced suddenly. “I think we could all use a treat. Chocolate, yes, Remus?”

Remus sighed. “If you're going to bake a cake it might as well be chocolate.”

“Very good.” She got up, dropped her dishes in the sink, flicked her wand to set them scrubbing, and started pulling out flour, sugar, cocoa, pans, measuring spoons, and the like.

Draco blinked at her. “Do people just spontaneously decide to make cakes? Is that something normal people do?”

“In our family,” Ron said, “yes. Absolutely.”

“That's bizarre. But nice.”

“I could adopt you, if you'd like,” Fleur teased while she measured flour. “With your hair, you could pass as my little brother. One of us must 'ave been a love-child, though, sent away with Papa's mistress when Mama found out—that explains the accents.” She grinned at him. “Are you allergic to anything? Just so I don't put it in the cake—my sister is allergic to raspberries and a good friend of mine when I was small was allergic to eggs so I always feel I should ask.”

“Avocados. Which I don't imagine you'd put in a cake.”

Sirius looked at him curiously. “I guess you really are my cousin.”

Draco wrinkled his nose. “What?”

“My father and brother were both horribly allergic to avocados.” Sirius chuckled. “You're the only other person I've ever met with that particular affliction.”

“Hey, Bill?” Ron asked. “Isn't one of Dad's brothers allergic to avocados?”

Bill hummed thoughtfully. “I think so, yeah.”

“You're _all_ related,” Hermione pointed out. “Draco's mother is Narcissa Malfoy nee Black. Her father, Cygnus, is Sirius's mother's brother _and_ Sirius's father's second cousin because pureblood families are like royal families and there's a disconcerting amount of incest, thankfully most of it distant. It's really a wonder more of you aren't hemophiliacs. Anyway, that makes Sirius and Draco second cousins twice removed as well as first cousins once removed. Ron, Bill, your paternal grandmother Cedrella's father Arcturus is Sirius's great-great-uncle twice over, which makes Sirius, I think, you and your siblings' third cousin twice removed or fourth cousin once removed. I'm not completely sure. So, Draco, Arcturus is your great-great-great-uncle, which I'm pretty sure makes Ron and his siblings your sixth cousins. Possibly fifth once removed. It starts to get a little hard to follow that far out.”

For a moment, everyone just stared at her. Then Draco said, “How the hell do you keep all that straight in your head and why weren't you in Ravenclaw?”

“No idea.” She grinned. “I have been studying and working on mending the family tree tapestry upstairs though.”

“Which I appreciate,” Sirius said. “But maybe you should take a day off.” He got up and snagged a piece of baking chocolate from a packet amongst the things Fleur had pulled out on the counter. “We should all take a day off. It's Wednesday, wonderful day to be useless.”

“He's been applying that logic to every day of the week ever since I met him,” Remus muttered into his coffee.

“Yes, I have,” Sirius said proudly. He pulled Remus up and out of his seat by the back of his jumper. “You're coming upstairs with me. You kids might want to to think of an excuse to leave the house, according to our poor Hogwarts roommates, I'm rubbish at soundproofing charms.”

Hermione and Ron both half choked. Everyone rolled their eyes or looked away. Remus yanked his jumper out of Sirius's grasp and sat back down, red faced. “I hate you.”

“You love me, and you'll feel better. On that note, blondie, keep your eyes out for a girlfriend.” Sirius waved his wand at the baking chocolate and Remus's coffee, making them both float after him as he pulled an objecting Remus from the kitchen. Partway down the hall, the objections turned to laughter.

“That was so awkward,” Ron said. Harry, Hermione, and Draco all nodded their agreement.

“Isn't being a grownup fun?” Bill said with grin.

“Of course,” Fleur agreed casually. “You get to do fun grown up things like boss your 'usband around.”

Bill turned red. It was Draco's turn to half choke. Hermione, Ron, and Harry looked confused. Draco waved them off. “Tried to breath egg.”

“Okay,” Hermione said skeptically. “Why don't we go into town?”

“Does that 'we' include him?” Harry asked, glancing at Draco.

“It's that or give me the opportunity to snoop around your house while you're out,” Draco challenged.

“He's coming with us,” Ron said firmly. “We don't really need anything, though, do we?”

“Not really.” Hermione cleared the table with a wave of her wand, the dishes scraping themselves then setting themselves scrubbing in the sink. “I was thinking we could go thriftshopping.”

“Muggle thriftshopping?” Ron asked skeptically.

“Mhm. I've still got muggle money on me, I think Harry does too?” He nodded and she grinned. “Great. So we can swing by Diagon Alley—I promised Ginny I'd take her next time I went clothes shopping, so we'll get her from your brothers' shop, the lot of you can stop at Gringots to exchange some money, and we'll all go shopping.”


	5. Chapter 5

Upstairs, Sirius closed and locked the master bedroom door. The coffee and chocolate landed softly on the nightstand. “Take your shirt off.”

“I'm tired, Pads,” Remus said, reaching for his coffee.

“I know.” Sirius ducked under Remus's arm and deftly undid the two buttons visible over the collar of his jumper. “And, all jokes aside, you know that's not what I'm asking.”

Remus sighed. “I'm fine.”

“Indulge me.”

With another sigh, Remus set his coffee back down, pulled off his jumper, shirt, and singlet, and held out his arms. “See, I'm fine.”

“Mm,” Sirius hummed, circling him, gently touching his wrists, his ribs, his shoulders. “Can you blame me for having a complex about you in long sleeves in summer, though?”

“I never wear short sleeves.”

“Because you still do this.” Sirius lightly poked a row of pink scratches on Remus's upper arm.

“Nervous habit.” Remus stepped out of Sirius's reach.

“That you'd broken.”

“Yeah, that was before half of everyone we know got murdered.”

“Have some chocolate, Moony.” Sirius held out the packet of pips. Remus looked at him a long moment, then took the chocolate and ate a handful. He let Sirius pull him onto the bed and rub at his back. “You should take up yoga.”

Remus snorted into a pillow.

“I'm serious.”

Remus grinned, eyes closed. “I know your name, Black.”

Sirius cuffed his ear. “You're always so tense.” He shook his head, digging his knuckles into the muscles across Remus's shoulders. “Over the past few years,” he said slowly, “from time to time, I'd catch myself thinking that, at least if one or both of us died in the war it would mean I wouldn't have to watch you wither away to nothing from the stress of your condition.”

Remus sat up quickly and stared at him. He grabbed his hands. “I'm not dying.”

“You've been dying every day since I met you.” He cupped Remus's jaw in one hand and kissed him. “You're not even forty and you've gone grey. You were already starting to at twenty. Don't get me wrong, it's a good look on you, but you and I both know it's just proof that all this does take a toll on you.”

Remus put a hand over Sirius's. “I'm just as much of a stubborn son of a bitch as you, I'll be fine.”

Sirius grinned and kissed him again. “That's why I love you.”

 

~*~

 

Draco and Ron were both still dubiously examining their pound notes when Hermione led them all into her thriftstore of choice. She shot them a look. “You look like idiots.” Ron put his money away. She narrowed her eyes. “ _Poor_ idiots.”

Draco tucked the bills into his pocket. “It's just paper, it seems worthless.”

“It's a symbolic monetary system.” Hermione rolled her eyes, looped her arm through Ginny's, and grinned “Shoes, or jumpers?”

Ginny hummed. “Jumpers first, then shoes.”

Hermione nodded and the two girls dove into the racks. Harry sighed. “And we've lost them.”

“Why are you surprised?” Ron picked up an orange hoodie from the nearest rack.

Draco sneered. “Weasley, that thing is the exact same colour as your hair—put it down before you embarrass yourself. And Potter, don't you have half a dozen of that shirt already?”

Harry looked down at the blue tshirt he was holding. “No?”

“Actually, mate,” Ron said, “you do.”

Draco shook his head in disgust and started idly thumbing through blazers. Ginny trotted over a short while later, fresh from the fitting rooms in some kind of clingy crushed velvet top and a tartan skirt. “Harry?” She twirled. “What do you think?”

He grinned. “I think you're gorgeous.” He kissed her.

Draco pretended to retch. Ron smacked him in the back of the head, though he was pointedly looking anywhere but at his best friend and sister. Hermione snickered at them, her arms full of fluffy jumpers and bluejeans. “Finding anything, boys?”

Ron held up a dark green shirt. Draco looked down at the black brocade sportcoat he had in one hand and the metallic blue tie he had in the other, held them up, and shrugged. “I'm doing better than Potter.”

Hermione sighed and nodded. “Does he keep picking up blue tshirts?”

“There's nothing wrong with blue tshirts,” Harry interjected.

“Except that you've got nine of them,” Ginny pointed out gently.

Harry sighed.

When they left the store after a surprisingly unproblematic paying process, Hermione had gotten four jumpers, two pairs of jeans, three tshirts, a halter top that left very little to the imagination, and a pair of bright purple sequined trainers that she called “fun;” Ginny had gotten the clingy top, two skirts, and a dress; Harry had had seven tshirts shoved on him, none of which were blue or red; Ron had found a pair of shoes the same green as the shirt he'd picked up; and Draco had four jackets, two vests, a dark purple buttondown shirt, and a handful of interesting ties. Ron eyed Draco's shopping as the clerk folded it into a bag. “Pretentious prick.”

“At least I don't dress like a colour blind toddler,” Draco shot back. The clerk giggled.

 

Sirius was eating a post-lunch slice of cake in the kitchen when the horde of teenagers returned, laden with shopping bags. “Looks like you all had a good outing. Cake?” He gestured at the half gone chocolate cake on the counter. “No avocados in it, Fleur swears.”

Harry and Ron looked at each other, then got cake. Hermione pulled a soft brown jumper out of one of her bags. “Where's Lupin? I got him something.”

“Asleep upstairs,” Sirius said, reaching for the jumper. He examined it. “You're so damn sweet, Hermione. I don't know what to do with you.”

“Sleep sounds good,” Draco muttered, heading for the hall.

“I'll make sure you get woken up in time for dinner,” Sirius sing-songed after him.

 

“You know,” Remus said as he and Sirius made their way upstairs after dinner, “waking me up by jumping on me as a dog is one thing, but doing the same to Draco seems uncalled for.”

Sirius laughed. “Worth it for his reaction.”

“Including the punch to the snout?” Remus asked skeptically.

“Especially the punch to the snout.” Sirius grinned. He followed Remus into his room and leaned on the dresser. “You should move your things into my room. No reason not to just live together now everyone knows.”

Remus held up a hand. “This is not a conversation for tonight.”

“This is a conversation for day after tomorrow?”

Remus nodded.

“Okay.” Sirius pulled Remus down by the front of his shirt to kiss his forehead. “Should I leave you alone?”

Remus nodded again.

Sirius let him go. “Okay. But I'll be back after moonrise with tail wags and fluff.”

Remus couldn't help but smile. He affectionately cuffed Sirius's shoulder on his way out, then closed the door. He looked around his room. He still had enough time before moonrise to read—but he knew himself, he'd lose track of time. Get undressed _then_ read, just to the end of the chapter. That would work.

A few minutes after moonrise, Remus slumped forward on his forepaws, glaring at the book he'd hastily thrown halfway across the room when he'd realized he'd lost track of time anyway. He'd lost his page. He'd have to re-find it in the morning. This always seemed to happen. He'd learn eventually. He had to learn eventually.

He heard the skitter of paws on the hallway floor—Sirius needed to cut his nails—followed by the thump and jangle of a dog fighting with a doorknob, then Sirius trotted in, tail wagging, fur extra fluffy. He must have showered. He barked and wagged expectantly. Remus swiveled an ear and sat up. Sirius padded over and nuzzled him, nearly enveloping Remus in his fur. Remus nuzzled him back and licked his snout. Weird how licking fur _isn't_ weird when you have fur. Sirius got behind him and started shoving him toward the door with his head. Remus slipped around him, went to the farthest corner of the room, and planted his bob-tailed butt on the floor. Sirius stood up, human, hands on his hips. “Oh, no. You spent last night cooped up in your room all night; you're gonna drive yourself crazy.” He scooped Remus up in his arms—Remus yelped, back paws scrabbling for purchase on air. Sirius draped him halfway over his shoulder and braced an arm under his back legs. “Good lord, you're heavy,” he muttered. “It's time for a kitchen raid.”

Remus snorted. He had little choice but to dangle his paws against Sirius's back and be carried downstairs. In the kitchen, Sirius set Remus on the table. He hopped down while Sirius stuck his head in the icebox, brushed up against his calves, and stuck his head in as well.

“There's still stew from last night.”

Remus leaned on his legs. Sirius scritched him behind his ear in a way that sent a shiver through Remus's body, grabbed the pot of stew, and put it on the stove to heat. He changed back and curled up with Remus on the floor. Remus shoved his face under Sirius's neck, hiding from the world in his fluff. Sirius was warm, and in this form, bigger than Remus, if not by much—still, it was a comfort.

Just as the stew started to bubble on the stove and Sirius got up to take advantage of having thumbs, Remus's ears pricked to the sound of paws on the stairs. He sat up straight and watched the door. Draco stopped in the doorway, eyes on Remus.

“Hey, Blondie,” Sirius said without turning around. He got down a third bowl.

Draco glanced at Sirius, stepped back, and continued down the hall. Sirius looked around at Remus, flicked his eyes to the door, then shrugged and put the bowl back.

After they ate—and helped get the gravy off each other's snouts—Sirius actually bothered to clean up after them. “You go can go on back upstairs,” he said to Remus as he put the stew back in the icebox.

Remus lingered briefly, then left. As he trotted down the hall from the kitchen, the portrait of Sirius's mother started spitting filthy epithets at him, he stopped walking, turned, and sat in front of her. He let her continue a moment, then reared up on his hind legs, sunk his claws in near the top of the frame, and shredded the canvas with a satisfied snarl. He backed up to survey his handy work. Mrs. Black was screaming horrifically. He heard doors opening upstairs. Draco appeared around the corner at the end of the hall, ears flat back, eyes wide. There were footsteps on the stairs and groggy expressions of irritation and confusion, then Sirius's laughing voice boomed over the rest, “Remus, what the hell, mate?”

He came to stand next to Remus, took in the tatters of his mother's ruined portrait, and laughed again. “Why didn't I do this years ago?” He knelt, scruffed Remus's fur affectionately, and kissed his forehead. “You're brilliant, you know that?”

Remus nuzzled him. Mrs. Black, cowering in an intact corner of her canvas, shrieked, “I cannot _believe_ any son of mine turned out a bestial sodomite like you! You are a disgrace! No respect—”

“None at all,” Sirius drawled, before drawing his wand and casting a silencing charm and wrestling the curtains closed. “That ought to shut her up for a while, at least.” He snorted, then chuckled. “Remus, you are absolutely brilliant.”

Remus rubbed his shoulder against Sirius's knee. The next moment, Padfoot was leaning heavily against him, tail wagging. Remus moved away, letting Sirius fall over. He stayed on his back, paws in the air, goofy upside down dog smile on his face while the others groggily returned to bed. Remus stepped on Sirius's belly below his ribs, making him wheeze then roll away and stagger up onto all four paws. He shook out his fluff and trotted down the hall to Draco, who was still staring at him and Remus like they'd lost their minds. He barked. Draco leaned away, growling. Sirius sat and wagged his tail. Draco continued to glare.

With a soft huff, Remus went over and reared up to push on Sirius's shoulder with his paws, shoving him away from Draco and toward the stairs. Sirius relented and loped up the stairs ahead of Remus.

In the morning, the first thing Remus felt once the blinding pain of the transformation had subsided was a pair of strong arms pulling him up off the floor and into bed, where they held him. Less than awake, and with only one eye half open, he traced the swirls and flourishes of Sirius's tattoos. Sirius kissed his hair and hummed.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Sirius, Remus, Harry, and Bill stood in the hallway, looking at the currently silenced, shredded portrait of Mrs. Black. She was visibly railing at them, but there was blessedly no sound to accompany her gesticulations. That wouldn't last long.

“Damn,” Harry breathed.

“He's brilliant isn't he?” Sirius was beaming.

“Would have been a little better if we weren't all trying to sleep,” Bill noted.

Remus shrugged and shook his head. “I'd had enough.”

“I get that.” Harry poked at one of the shreds of canvas.

“But the question is,” Sirius said, “what now?”

Bill kicked the baseboard lightly. “Think the best course of action is just to cut out the section of wall and burn it.”

Scrunched into an intact corner of the canvas, Mrs. Black froze, blanched, then redoubled her raving.

The other three men shared looks. Sirius shrugged. “Sure. We'll have to brace it magically—this is a load bearing wall—but once we've got the damn painting out we can rebuild it.”

 

Sitting at the kitchen table, Draco rubbed his temple and watched the cold, pale fire in the hearth slowly eat away the wood and canvas that had been unceremoniously dumped in the grate. It was oddly satisfying. “If this portrait's been such a problem, why hasn't anyone done this before now?”

“Good question,” Sirius said as he chucked another hunk of wall into the fire. “No idea.”

“It was a secondary concern to the whole not dying, winning the war thing,” Bill said, also tossing a section of wall in to burn. They were cutting the wall out in small pieces and rebuilding it as they went along as a precaution against the whole damn house collapsing.

“Yet, you managed to get married in the middle of it all,” Harry pointed out.

“Wartime weddings have a long history,” Hermione said. “Soldiers frequently rush to marry their girlfriends—or sometimes even women they barely know—before they ship out, just in case they don't come back. It ensures a degree of financial security for the wives left behind, and, due to the consummation of so many marriages, tends to cause a bit of a baby boom, which compensates for the population loss caused by war related deaths. I expect the two-thousand-nine and two-thousand ten entering classes at Hogwarts to be massive compared to ours.”

Draco blinked at her. “I really don't know where in your head you keep all this random crap.”

“Don't be stupid, Malfoy,” Ginny scoffed, passing through to drop a cup in the sink. “She hides the fun facts in her hair.” She affectionately patted the sizable poof of Hermione's ponytail. Hermione rolled her eyes but laughed.

“Then where did she put them during the Yule ball?” Harry asked.

“My purse,” Hermione provided with a grin. Ginny snorted and held up a hand. Hermione high-fived her. Draco watched them all in bewilderment.

 

That night, Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny sat in the kitchen, eating cake—Molly had made this one—while the girls watched the boys play chess. Ron had won the last three games but Harry was still trying.

“Maybe there?” Ginny suggested, poking the board.

Harry shook his head. “That would open up my queen to his knight.”

They were interrupted by a thundering on the stairs which was followed by a thundering in the hall. Through the open kitchen door, there was a streak of yellow-green, followed by two blurs of fluff, one black, one mottled brown. There was a scrambling and a muffled thud at the end of the hall a moment after they passed. Then the streak and the blurs thundered back the other way.

“Are they playing _fetch_?” Ron asked incredulously.

“I think so,” Harry said.

Hermione tilted her head to the side. “I almost want to take them to a dog run.”

“I don't think they'd take well to that,” Ginny said softly.

“Probably not,” Hermione agreed.

A moment later, there was a louder thump, then a white blur of fluff darted into the room and dove for cover under the table. Hermione ducked down to look at him. “Draco?”

Draco was curled up between one of the legs of the table and a chair, body pressed close to the floor, ears flat to his skull. He looked up at her, eyes wide.

The others ducked down. Draco shrunk. Hermione chewed her lip. “Did you get between Sirius and his ball?”

Draco shook his head.

“Sirius and a wall?” Ron suggested.

Draco nodded.

All four of them grimaced sympathetically. Hermione lightly smacked Ron's arm. “It's your turn, isn't it?”

“No—” Ron tried to stand but banged his head on the table. “Ow. Shit. No, it's still Harry's.”

“Right,” Harry said. He managed to get up without hitting his head.

The four of them settled back around their game. Ginny raised an eyebrow at Hermione, who shrugged infinitesimally in return. After a minute—and several smashed chess pieces—Draco emerged from under the table and climbed up onto the chair he'd been cowering next to. He put his paws on the table and watched the game, which Harry promptly lost. One of Draco's ears twitched. Harry shot him a look. “Think you'd do any better, Malfoy?”

Draco barked indignantly.

Ginny tucked her hair behind her ear. “I second that, and I don't like to agree with him.”

There was a loud thump followed by discordant clattering and a yelp from upstairs, followed by Percy's voice shouting, “For Christ's sake, it's a weeknight! What are you doing?!”

“Playing ball,” Sirius's voice called back.

“If you're so worried about a ruckus on a weeknight, why are you yelling?” Bill's voice added, clearly agitated.

“You could always get your own damn flat,” one of the twins offered.

“He _has_ his own damn flat!” the other twin added. “He's just hanging around for Mum's cooking like we are.”

“All of you go back to bed!” Molly's voice cut through the others. “Or _at least_ be quiet. And Sirius?”

“Yes, Molly?”

“Do not play ball in the house when people are trying to sleep!”

“Yes, Molly,” Sirius laughed.

In the kitchen, Ron and Ginny looked at each other. “Our Mum is everybody's Mum,” Ron said.

Ginny nodded, hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.

 

The next morning after breakfast, Hermione caught Remus by the sleeve as he was walking off with a cup of coffee and dragged him with her as she went to corner Draco in the hallway. “So,” she demanded.

“So?” Draco drawled. “So what?”

Remus sighed. “I think she means 'so, how'd she do brewing wolfsbane potion.' And the answer is, you did fine.”

“Only fine?” Hermione sounded despondent.

“You're such a perfectionist,” Draco sneered. “I couldn't tell any difference from the stuff I got from Snape. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going home—where, hopefully, ministry goons haven't ruined all my things—then I'm going to go visit my parents in prison.” He shouldered past her and stalked off down the hall.

“And I thought I was a ray of sunshine the morning after….” Remus sipped his coffee. “Come by at the end of the month to pick up next month's potion,” he called after Draco. He got no response, a moment later the front door opened then slammed shut. “He doesn't appreciate you nearly enough, Hermione,” he said.

Hermione shrugged. “I don't expect him to appreciate anything, the wealthy prick.”

“You know Harry and Sirius are rich, too, right?”

“Yeah, but they don't act all entitled like that.” She gestured around. “And, well, this isn't exactly the lap of luxury.”

“That's true,” Remus admitted

“On that note!” Sirius interjected as he came up from the kitchen, still eating a piece of toast. “I've talked the boys into helping me rip up this godforsaken, moth eaten, health hazard of an excuse for carpeting. Hermione, think you could head up an expedition to a muggle store to buy new carpet?”

“You're replacing the carpet?” Remus asked incredulously.

Sirius shrugged. “War's over, I'm still alive, my house is a wreck—we made it habitable a couple years ago, seems about time to make it comfortable.” He beamed expectantly at Hermione.

She crossed her arms. “You're making the trip to Gringotts to exchange money.”

“I can do that,” Sirius agreed.

“I hate to give you ideas,” Remus said, “but while you're ripping up carpet, maybe you should open the sitting room and music room and rip out that carpet, too? Get everything done on this floor in one go?”

“That's not a bad idea,” Sirius mused.

“Is that what those are?” Hermione asked, pointing to the two perpetually locked doors across from the dining room they never bothered to use. “A music room and sitting room?”

“Yeah. Complete with another piano.” Sirius brushed the toast crumbs from his fingers and stuck his hands in his pockets. “They wound up pretty far down the priority list of rooms to make hospitable to human life, so they're still mouldering.” He cocked his head, long hair falling in his face, and gave Remus a toothy grin. “I think they just became this weekend's project.”

Remus sighed and headed back toward the stairs down to the kitchen. “I'm going to need more coffee. And Hermione, let me know when you go shopping, I volunteer to go with you just to get away from the craziness that's soon to ensue.”

By the time Hermione was ready to go shopping, the ground floor of number twelve resembled one of the house flipping shows her mother liked to watch. Harry, Ron, Ginny, Fred, and Bill were gleefully tearing the worn, tattered carpet up—all of them in dragon hide gloves and the leftover dustmasks from the slime removal a few weeks before. Sirius popped back from Diagon Ally and handed her a sizable stack of Muggle money. “I think this'll cover it?”

“Yeah, definitely.” Hermione flipped through the bills. “How—I don't think I've ever seen this many pounds in one place in my life.”

Sirius shrugged. “The whole sixteen-odd years I was in jail or on the run, my vault was sealed but still collecting interest, and even though I was disowned, my mother never actually got around to officially disinheriting me, and I'm the last Black left, so all the family money is mine. _And_ , as I found out today, due to a legal hiccup involving kinship and absence of a will and I wasn't really paying attention to the details, since my bitch of a cousin is six feet under, the Lestrange assets all got split between me and Narcissa Malfoy.”

“Wow.” Hermione carefully tucked the wad of cash into her purse. “Lupin!” she called, “Time to go buy carpet!” She watched the corner of a sheet of wallpaper curl another couple inches off the wall. “And maybe some paint.”

Fleur appeared on the landing before Remus responded. “Take me with you. I don't want to know what is in this carpet, I feel like I can't breathe.”

“The three of us can all go,” Remus said gently as he came down the stairs above her. He looked to Hermione. “Lead the way.”

They took the Knightbus to the nearest DIY warehouse. An orange-aproned clerk smiled at them. “Can I help you with anything today?”

Hermione held out her hands. “Apparently we're buying carpet.”

“Apparently?” the clerk asked

“We didn't expect to be buying carpet today,” Hermione explained. “We didn't know carpet was getting replaced until after breakfast.”

“I see.”

“My roommate's inherited his mother's house,” Remus said. “It needs work.”

“That is an understatement,” Fleur muttered.

The clerk nodded slowly. “Old house?”

“I think it's Victorian,” Hermione hedged.

Remus nodded. “And it hasn't been well cared for since the seventies.”

“Big project,” the clerk concluded and started showing them carpet options.

“This is nice,” Fleur said, running her hand over a sample swatch.

Remus shook his head. “Claws get caught in berber.”

“Oh, do you have animals?” The clerk asked pleasantly.

“Dogs,” Remus said flatly.

“Three of them,” Hermione added. “Big ones. That like to run around the house.”

“There were only two but we recently took in a stray.” Fleur smiled angelically.

“And a cat and a few birds,” Hermione said.

“Okay, lots of animals, so you're not going to want anything light coloured.” The clerk folded her hands and glanced between the three of them. “Just to get an idea of traffic, how many people are living in this house?”

“It's variable,” Remus said.

Fleur crossed her arms. “It's, I believe, eleven bedrooms, six and half bath, five floors including the basement. Think of it like a small hotel, or, uh, a boarding house.”

The clerk blinked at her.

“My friends and I are just out of school,” Hermione said. “The house belongs to my one friend's godfather, who's been kind enough to let us stay there.”

“It's a three decades late hippie commune,” Remus said dryly.

“Okay,” the clerk said, shaking her head and laughing quietly. “So, something durable and stain-resistant, that pups' nails won't get caught in. Okay. What colour is the existing carpet?”

The three shoppers exchanged looks. “I think it _used_ to be red,” Hermione said, “sometime before I was born.”

“Okay,” the clerk said.

After a small and reluctant bit of magical persuasion to let them walk out unsupervised with a flatbed trolly laden with several cans of paint, other painting supplies, and a roll of dark blue carpet with a vague floral pattern cut into it, Hermione, Fleur and Remus summoned the Knightbus again. Hermione shoved a few of the bus's seats out of the way to make room for the carpet. Remus levitated the carpet into the space she'd made, let it settle, then dropped himself into a chair. The ladies sat to either side of him. As the bus lurched into motion, Remus braced one of the cans with his foot to prevent it from being slung to the back of the bus. Hermione sighed. “Can I just thank the two of you for not being weird in muggle stores?”

“I've been transient enough that I've briefly worked in Muggle shops a few times,” Remus explained.

Fleur smiled and shrugged. “My sister and I would sneak away from our parents whenever we visited Paris to go window licking in the Muggle shopping district.”

Hermione blinked. “Window...licking?”

“Oh.” Fleur shook her head. “Lèche-vitrine. Window shopping.”

“Okay.” Hermione sighed. “Just know, 'window licker' is a rather mean term in English for mentally handicapped children.”

Fleur put a hand over her mouth, eyes wide. “I had no idea, I'm so sorry.”

Remus frowned. “I've never heard that before.”

“I think it's a little specific to the Muggle schooling system,” Hermione explained with a grimace.

When the bus disgorged them at Grimmauld Place, the shrunken head cackling behind them at its own rude joke, they were faced with a veritable mountain of faded carpet shreds next to number thirteen's rubbish bin. “Well, they've been productive,” Fleur commented as she mounted the stoop. She pushed the door open and yelled down the hall, “Come 'elp carry things inside so the neighbors don't see us floating a log of carpet and think they're high!”

Hermione snickered as those they'd left behind filed out of the house to help. Sirius dropped a wad of yellowed wallpaper on number thirteen's rubbish heap. “That's a lot of paint.”

“Fleur has a plan,” Remus assured him. “Let's stick the carpet in the dining room until we need it—I don't think it'll fit anywhere else and painting should happen before we put the new carpet down.”

Once everything was inside, Fleur folded her hands on the post at the end of the banister that ran down the stairs to the kitchen. “So, obviously, we have to get the rest of the wallpaper down and the music and sitting rooms need to be cleaned out before we can do anything else. When that's done, what I'm thinking is, the carpet we got is quite dark, which is good for it not looking dirty, but this hallway is rather narrow so a dark floor could make the entire hall very dark, too dark, unwelcomingly dark. We don't want that. So we've got a lighter blue paint and some translucent shiny paints to sponge over it to catch the light—Hermione has done something like that with her mother, she says it turns out looking a little like plaster or stone. Then we also have other blue paints for the other rooms, we can paint stripes or something to mimic wallpaper. Paint is less hassle than paper though.”

Sirius nodded. “Okay.”

“Don't forget to dust the chandelier,” Molly chided as she came up from the kitchen with a pitcher of lemonade and stack of glasses. “And all of you, stay hydrated. I don't want anyone passing out.”

Sirius rolled his eyes and waved his wand at a featherduster sitting on the stairs, it rose into the air, and set about cleaning the chandelier.

“While we're at it,” Fleur said, pouring herself a glass of lemonade, “can you please get rid of those 'orrible elf heads on the landing?”

Molly nodded. “They're morbid and creepy.”

“Yeah….” Sirius sighed. “I'll take those down.”

 

~*~

 

Draco let his mother hug him, then stepped back and looked around. “They've given you a nicer room.”

“I've earned a bit of favor,” Narcissa said with a tight smile. Draco gave her a questioning look. She sighed and smoothed the skirt of her green dress as she sat in one of her two fiddleback chairs. “I agreed to testify.”

“Against Father?” Draco asked sharply.

“No,” his mother said quickly. “And, unless they find a way to justify denying spousal privilege, I won't be. I'm going to testify against others, though.”

Draco sighed and settled into the other chair. “Well, I'm glad you've been made more comfortable here.”

She nodded and took his hands in hers. “How are you, though?”

“Tired.”

“Of course.” She looked at their intertwined hands. “You've been to visit your cousin?”

“Yes. They tolerate me, which I suppose is as much as I could ask for.” He huffed and tacked on as an afterthought, “And more than I'd any right to expect.”

Narcissa pursed her lips. “I think we've all—not just our family, everyone who sided with V—” she took a breath and gritted her teeth “—Voldemort in the war—we've all learned the hard way that making enemies makes it hard to find friends when you need them.”

Draco snorted, pulled his hands from hers, and leaned back in his chair. “I've never had friends in my life, Mother.”

She frowned. “What about Gregory and Vincent?”

“Goons,” Draco dismissed. “I didn't like them, I thought they were stupid. They were in my year, so I was guaranteed to talk to them, but I doubt I'd have kept them around if my father didn't _work_ with their fathers.”

“Pansy?” Narcissa tried.

Draco shrugged. “Got along well enough with her, but I hardly cared about her.”

“You dated her for nearly three years,” Narcissa objected.

“She fancied me, and wasn't subtle about it, so I asked her to the Yule ball. Even Longbottom had a date, I certainly wasn't going to go alone. She assumed we were dating after that and, well, by fourth year nearly half my classmates were starting to date, so I didn't fight her on it. She was convenient, a status symbol and pawn.”

The wrinkles around Narcissa's eyes deepened. “Flint?”

“Teammate, little more. He's even dumber than Grabbe and Goyle, and enough older than me than I never spoke to him off the Quidditch pitch.”

“Blaise Zabini?”

“Classmate and teammate. He's obnoxiously self centered and shallow.”

“The Carrow sisters?”

“I think they're creepy.”

Narcissa hung her head. Draco waited for her to speak, but she didn't. Three dark damp spots bloomed on her skirt.

Draco sat forward slowly. “Mother, are you crying?” he asked gently.

She looked up, eyes wet. “Your father and I have utterly failed you as parents if the way we raised you has kept you from making friends.”

“ _That's_ what gives you the impression you've failed me?” Draco demanded with disgust. He shook his head and got up from his chair. “Not the fact that Father's in prison, and you're in protective custody?” He started to pace. “Not that our house is a crime scene? Not that I've personally witnessed half a dozen murders? Not that I've used all of the unforgivable curses? Not this?!” He pulled up his left sleeve to show the ropey, puckered, blanched scars before quickly yanking his sleeve back down.

Narcissa looked away. “Draco, I—”

“Don't.” He cut her off in exasperation and dropped back into his chair. “Don't bother.”

She bit her lip and dried her eyes on her sleeve. “Have you been to see your father?”

“No.” Draco fiddled with the button on his cuff. “I might go later today.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

Remus pulled the painters' tape from the music room wall. It made a satisfying sound as it peeled away, leaving crisp, alternating satin and matte blue-on-blue vertical stripes behind. The hall had been finished yesterday. Fleur and Sirius were next door in the sitting room, bewitching old, coarse, horse-hair cleaning brushes to stipple the newly-sky-blue walls with a darker blue. The carpet had been sitting untouched in the dining room for the week. A clang and sploosh from the next room made Remus cringe. Sirius cussed. Fleur huffed. “See? This is exactly why we paint before we put down the carpet.”

By the time Remus made it to the door of the sitting room to see if everything was alright, the paint can had been righted and the spilt paint magically returned to its container, but various drips of paint lingered on the bare floorboards, and the toe of Sirius's shoe was blue. Remus snickered. Sirius scowled at him, but then laughed. Fleur rolled her eyes.

The front door creaked as it was pushed open. Remus looked around to see as Draco Malfoy stepped in, then stopped, eyeing the sponge-painted walls. “Am I in the right house?”

“We painted,” Remus said, by way of greeting.

“I can see that.”

Fleur came to the door of the sitting room. “Good afternoon, Draco. We weren't expecting you.”

“He seems to be making a habit of showing up unannounced,” Sirius said, leaning against the doorframe.

Draco shrugged and looked away.

“Don't mind Sirius,” Remus said with a sigh. “I don't.”

Fleur crossed her arms. “Yes you do.”

Sirius chuckled. Remus kicked his ankle lightly without looking down. Draco gave them a disbelieving look, then rolled his eyes. “Where's everyone else?”

“Work, or grocery shopping with Molly,” Remus provided.

“It's Saturday, who's working?”

“The twins are at their shop,” Sirius said, “and Arthur and Percy are at the Ministry because things are busy what with the dawning of a new age and all that.”

“And Bill is meeting with his boss,” Fleur added. “To work out when he'll go back to work.” She tucked a silvery wisp of hair sternly behind one ear.

“Everyone else is shopping?”

“Hermione's introducing Molly to some Muggle store called Costco.” Sirius shrugged. “Everyone else tagged along.”

“So the three of you are here...painting?” Draco glanced at the wall.

“Finishing up, yeah,” Remus said.

“Well, d'you need any help, since I'm here?” Draco offered stiltedly.

Remus looked to Sirius and Fleur. She shrugged. “He can help you pull up tape. When the sitting room is dry the tape here can come up too.”

 

Draco and Remus had just finished pulling up the tape from the sitting room and Sirius and Fleur were magicking the carpet into place when the group who'd been out shopping got home, all laden with a ridiculous number of bulging shopping bags. Molly looked thrilled. She bustled past to the stairs down to the kitchen. “Come, come, you've got to see what we've bought. Hermione thought I'd like this Costco place—she was right, as usual. They sell _everything._ Oh, hello Draco,” she tacked on absently as his whiteblond head poked out into the hall.

Following her mother down with just as many shopping bags, Ginny shot Draco a look, “What are you doing here, Malfoy?”

“Helping,” he said defiantly. “It's better than being home alone.”

Harry and Ron rolled their eyes as they passed. Ron prodded his sister to continue on down the stairs. Fleur wiped her hands on her skirt and trotted after them. Sirius shrugged, finished a sticking charm on a corner of carpet, and followed Fleur. Remus lightly touched Draco's elbow before trailing after Sirius, a gentle encouragement to follow suit which Draco heeded.

Downstairs, the shopping had been dumped on the kitchen table, some of it spilling from its bags.

“Jesus, Molly, did you buy an entire cow?” Sirius asked as Molly stacked packages of meat in the icebox.

“No,” Molly said sternly. “Only most of one.”

“Seems reasonable to me,” Fleur said. “With so many people in this house, even if not every day, and two and a half of them werewolves….”

“Exactly,” Molly agreed emphatically. “Hermione, dear, find Remus the shirts we got for him, won't you?”

Hermione scrounged through a few bags, then held out four of the same shirt in different colours. “Don't worry, she shopped for everyone.”

Remus took the shirts and laughed a little. “Thank you, Molly.”

Molly waved a hand dismissively. “I think you've had most of your clothes since before Harry was born. You need new ones from time to time. Since we're all doing better financially, and goodness knows you won't shop for yourself, I thought I might as well.”

“She also bought us all clothing shavers,” Harry said, holding one up. He shrugged. “They get the fuzzballs off of jumpers.”

“It'll make them last longer,” Molly said superiorly.

“You're sending me some mixed messages, Molly,” Remus teased. “Do you want me to have new clothes, or do you want the ones I have to survive longer?”

“Yes,” Molly answered simply. Sirius chuckled. Molly made a shooing gesture at the shopping on the table. “Come on, get things put away. I need room to cook. Are you staying for dinner, Draco?”

“I suppose so.” He fiddled with his left cuff. “It's that or try to cook for myself…. It's a shame conjuring food doesn't work.”

“You're staying,” Molly commanded.

Harry shook his head while he stacked dry goods in the pantry. “I don't know how people get to adulthood without knowing how to feed themselves,” he muttered. “I could cook breakfast by age ten.”

Draco glared at him. “I'm rich, remember?”

“So am I.” Harry crossed his arms.

Draco snorted. “You came into money, it's different.”

“Your aunt and uncle did sort of keep you as a slave as a child,” Hermione said with a grimace. “That's why you learned to cook, isn't it?”

Harry chewed on a word for second, then wagged a finger at her and went back to putting food away. “At least I know how.”

Sirius gave Draco a shove in the direction of the stove. “Molly, why don't you teach this one how _not_ to starve to death?”

“Alright.” Molly sent the last few bags magically speeding upstairs. “I could use the extra hands.”

“I really don't—” Draco began. Molly shot him a stern look. He crossed his arms and looked away but he shut up.

Molly smiled. “Good.”

 

Dinner took nearly twice as long as it should have to be made, but the house didn't burn down and Draco only received minor self inflicted injuries. All told, it was a success by Molly's reckoning. Draco ducked out as soon as he'd done eating just to escape Ron and Harry's teasing and went home.

 

~*~

 

Sirius combed his fingers through Remus's hair as he sat up against his headboard, Remus laying against his chest. “Your hair's getting long.”

“You're one to talk,” Remus mumbled, reaching up to tug one of Sirius's shoulder-length curls.

Sirius chuckled and tucked the stray curl behind his ear. “I look good with long hair and you know it.”

“When you're not letting it get matted, sure.” He rubbed Sirius's cheek. “Your beard is starting to cross the line from dapper into hobo, though.”

Sirius snorted and bent to kiss Remus's forehead. “Yours always makes you look like a hobo.”

Remus grinned. “Well I've been a hobo, so I think I've earned it.”

“Fair.” Sirius sighed and looked up to the ceiling. “At least it's better than James's ill-advised experiment with mutton chops.”

Remus laughed and covered his face with his hands. “No seventeen year old looks good with mutton chops.”

“Thank God that didn't last.”

“Yeah.” Remus snuggled against Sirius's bare chest. “We should get up and get breakfast.”

Sirius made a dismissive sound. “That means getting dressed.” He tightened his arms around Remus. “Maybe we should have sex again instead.”

Remus groaned in half-hearted protest. “That'll just make us hungrier and guarantee that Hermione'll've taken over the kitchen with potion making by the time we get downstairs.”

“We can go out for breakfast,” Sirius breathed against Remus's throat, hands finding their way down to his arse.

“You're paying.”

“Of course I'm paying, you tit. I'm rich and you're a hobo,” Sirius said indignantly. Remus laughed. Sirius grinned and rolled on top of him.

When they finally got around to getting dressed and going downstairs, Hermione had, as predicted, taken over the kitchen with potion making, so the two men went to a nearby wizarding bistro. Remus glanced briefly at the next table over, then poked at his food, and mumbled to Sirius, “That woman over there keeps staring at us.”

Sirius's eyes slid slowly over to the woman at the next table. He frowned. “She looks familiar,” he whispered.

Remus hunched his shoulders. “She probably recognizes one or the other of us—this was a bad idea, pariah and a felon out in public together….”

“Excuse you, I've been pardoned,” Sirius objected. “And don't call yourself that.”

The woman put her hand down hard on her table. “It is you!” she said emphatically. “Sirius Black.”

Sirius turned to her. “So?”

The woman smiled and got up from her chair. “It's Stebbins, Angelica Stebbins. Come now, I was in your year at school—Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor, but we still had classes together, you must remember. You told me I'd never live down carrying on writing after time'd been called on our O.W.L.s. I'll be quite disappointed if you've gone back on your word on that.”

Sirius blinked at her. “No, I remember that—didn't recognize you.”

“Well, you haven't seen me in nearly two decades, have you?” She put her hands on her hips sternly, then shrugged. “Not that you could do much about it, I guess, what with being in Azkaban or on the run and all that—can hardly tell you how glad I am you turned out not to be a homicidal maniac, by the way.”

“Thank you, Angelica….” Sirius said. Remus stifled a snicker.

Angelica gave Remus a hard look then brightened. “Goodness! Look at me making a fool of myself chiding him for not recognizing me while I'm standing here not recognizing you. Remus Lupin.” She shook her head. “I swear, you always were the skinny one of the bunch. Past few years been rough on you?”

Remus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I think it's been rough on everyone.”

“That's true,” Angelica said soberly. She leaned on the table and lowered her voice. “You were teaching a few years ago, weren't you?”

“I was,” Remus confirmed cautiously.

“Do you know what people were saying about why you got sacked?”

“I resigned, actually. I wasn't sacked.”

“Oh.” Angelica's face fell. “But you do know, don't you? What they said?”

“Yes,” Remus said simply. He shot a warning glance at Sirius, who had shifted in his seat as though to get up. Sirius settled.

Oblivious to the silent conversation that had just taken place across the small table, Angelica hesitated then lay a careful hand on Remus's arm. “They—they're not _true_ , are they? The rumors.” she half whispered. “You're a decent chap, you always were,” she added quickly. “I don't think anything would change...that….” She eyed him cautiously.

He met her gaze. For a long moment, he didn't say anything. Sirius kicked his foot under the table. Remus looked at him and Sirius glanced pointedly at the door: _Let's go_. Remus looked back to Angelica. “Yes, they're true.”

Angelica straightened up slowly. He hand slipped from Remus's arm. For a brief moment she just stood there, then she shook her head, dragged her chair over from her own table, and sat heavily. “Good Lord, Remus.” She shook her head again and folded her hands. “When did it happen?”

“Before I ever met you.” Remus resumed eating his food.

She blinked at him. “Before—? So in school—?”

“Yup.” Remus didn't look at her.

“Did the staff know?” she asked breathlessly.

Remus gave her a nettled look. “They had to.”

“Right, of course, stupid question.” Angelica hugged herself. “And your friends?” She looked to Sirius.

“Yup.” Sirius sipped his coffee. He pulled some coins from his pocket and set them on the table. “Remus, let's go.” He stood. “Enjoy your meal, Angelica.” He strode from the cafe.

Remus gave Angelica a tight smile then hurried after Sirius. He caught with him on the sidewalk. “Sirius, what was that?”

“She was making me uncomfortable.”

“She was making _you_ uncomfortable?” Remus laughed incredulously. “You weren't the one she was prying into.”

“You were letting her pry.”

“Sirius, she's harmless.” Remus shrugged. “It's not exactly a secret anymore, and, to be honest, it's nice to have someone react with something other than revulsion and terror, even if she's only fascinated with me as a subject for gossip.”

Sirius shook his head, then suddenly stopped walking, which caused Remus to walk smack into him. Remus stumbled back, rubbed his arm where it had impacted Sirius's shoulder, then looked where Sirius was looking. Sirius grinned at the storefront of the music shop in front of them. “We're buying vinyl,” he announced.

“Are you even carrying pounds?”

“Yup.” Sirius reached for the door.

Remus sighed and muttered to himself, “Welcome back to the seventies….” as he followed Sirius in.

 

When Sirius and Remus returned to Grimmauld Place, each of them carrying a bag of records, they went up to the drawing room to put away their purchases, and found Harry, Ron, and Draco in mid conversation—fight? Row? Mutual bitchfest? It was hard to tell.

“Hey,” Harry snapped, “if you had somewhere else to stay, would you _shut up_ about how much you hate your nice big fancy house?”

Draco blinked at him. “What?”

“You're here every other week anyway. Just move in and stop whining about living alone.”

“You're inviting me to move in?”

“If it'll shut you up, yes.” Harry shrugged. “As long as Sirius doesn't object?” He looked around.

Sirius shrugged. “I don't care.”

Draco was taken aback a moment. “Thank you.”

Ron looked back and forth a few times. “Did that just happen?”

“I think it did.” Remus folded up his now-empty paper bag. “I wouldn't question it. Today is a little weird.”

“No shit….” Ron slid down in his chair.

The next moment, Hermione trotted up the stairs and skidded to a halt in the doorway. “It'll be just another—oh, Lupin, Sirius, I didn't know you'd gotten back. Hi. Anyway. The potion has to simmer for twenty minutes, then I've got to add one more thing, then it'll be finished. So just about another half hour.”

Draco nodded in acknowledgement. Sirius leaned against the upright piano at the edge of the room. “Blondie, you wanna take this opportunity to go pack your things?”

“I think I'll wait, til maybe tomorrow,” Draco said.

Hermione tilted her head, looking rather like Padfoot. “Huh?”

“Harry asked Blondie to move in.” Sirius gave a toothy grin. “We should celebrate the evolution of their relationship.”

Draco made a sound of disgust, levered himself up from his chair, and stalked out of the room past Hermione. Sirius laughed. Remus sighed. Harry ran a hand over his face. Ron and Hermione shrugged at each other, then Hermione went down the stairs after Draco.


	8. Chapter 8

Draco stood in front of his trunk where it stood open at the foot of his bed, neatly filled with folded clothing, stacked books, quills and ink, and tucked away shoes—just like going off to school, except all his uniforms were still hanging in his wardrobe. He closed his trunk and locked it. “Come here, Euphrates,” he beckoned his eagle owl down from the top of one bedpost then coaxed the bird into its cage. “Time to go.”

He went to Grimmauld Place by floo, it was the path of least resistance with his trunk and his owl. Molly and Ginny were in the kitchen when he stepped out onto the hearth. Ginny glared. Euphrates gave a low, disgruntled hoot.

“Afternoon, Draco,” Molly said. “You missed lunch, but we still—”

“I already ate,” Draco lied quickly. He pulled his wand and floated his trunk upstairs ahead of him, Euphrates sitting on top in his cage. He got to the room he'd borrowed, closed the door, let his owl out, and started to unpack. He could do something about the muggle posters stuck all over the walls later.

He'd just finished putting his clothes in the chifforobe when there was a knock at the door.

“It's not locked.” He shut the drawer he'd just dumped his socks into.

The door creaked open and Hermione's head of artful flyaways popped in around it. “Um, hi, Draco.”

He turned to her slowly. “Hi.”

“I know you just got here, but can you come down to the sitting room? I'm calling a sort of meeting and I'd really appreciate it if you'd join. You ought to be there. It's sort of to do with you.”

He eyed her cautiously but shrugged, motioned for her to lead the way, and followed her to the drawing room, where Remus was already nursing a cup of tea while he chatted with Sirius. Draco leaned against a bookcase. Hermione took a seat in a plush chair behind a low table strewn with books, scrolls, and rolls of parchment. “So I've been reading.”

“That's not news, Granger,” Draco said impatiently.

“Will you give me a moment to get to my point?” she snapped. “Do you make an effort to be so infuriating?”

“Sorry,” he muttered, eyes on the carpet. “Habit.”

“Jeez, you weren't this crabby yesterday. Anyway,” Hermione began again, “I've been reading, and I can't believe how little there is written anywhere about lycanthropy and werewolves.” She gestured at the small library arrayed on the table. “Every single book and essay, codex and memoir, article and entry just repeats the same six or seven points over and over again. It's a travesty. So I've decided I'm going to write a book, but I'll need the two of you to help me.” She folded her hands and looked hopefully at Remus and Draco.

“I will do no such thing,” Draco said firmly.

Hermione leveled an intense, disbelieving stare at him. “So you’d rather that 'murderous beast that, uniquely among fantastic creatures, actively seeks out human prey in preference to any others' remains what most people know about your kind? Because that’s what it says in _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find_ _T_ _hem_. You think you ought to qualify as a 'beast?'”

“No! I don't know.” He shook his head. “I just don't want to be interrogated about—that.”

“I'm not keen on her following me around taking notes, either, but,” Remus ran a hand through his hair, “I do know that the rampant lack of accurate information about my condition and the fear inspired by what information _is_ available has contributed greatly to my inability to keep a job or a flat and to the harassment I've suffered. There's a need for such a book.”

“Exactly,” Hermione said. “And I don't want to _interrogate_ either of you, I just need to be told things. Look.” She unrolled several feet of parchment. “This is everything I’ve got that I have either never read anywhere or have found in only one book that I know just from being around you without asking direct questions. It's a great start, but not enough for an entire book.”

From the other side of the room, Sirius spoke up. “If the two of them are too angsty and awkward to talk to you, I'm sure there's plenty I could tell you. Been Moony's best friend since we were twelve, spent plenty of full moons with him as a dog, seen how he's like both with and without Wolfsbane Potion,” Sirius smirked, “shared a bedroom, later a bed. I think I know a thing or two.”

“I would greatly appreciate that.” She smiled at him then glanced at Remus. “As long as it's alright with you.”

“I doubt I could stop him.” Remus shrugged. “I don't mind anyway.”

Draco snorted. “As long you don't interrogate me.”

“I won't.” Hermione squared her shoulders. “But you still have plenty of making up to do, so when I do have questions for you I expect your cooperation.”

“Yeah, alright.” Draco waved a hand and left the room.

Remus caught him on the stairs with a hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“What?” Draco shrugged him off.

“Hermione's right, you're particularly cantankerous today.” Remus folded his arms.

Draco shrugged. “Going through to get my things together just put me in a bad mood, okay?”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“Not really, no,” Draco snapped.

“Of course you don't.” Remus sighed and rubbed Draco's shoulder. “Find me if you change your mind.”

Draco shrugged impertinently. He was just stepping up onto the next stair when Ron's voice bellowed down the stairs, “Malfoy! Your goddamn bird just tried to eat Pigwidgeon!

Draco stopped with his hand on the rail. “He tried to eat _what_?”

Remus ducked his head, trying not to laugh. Ron appeared at the next landing, cradling a disheveled puff of grey feathers, which he held up. “Pig!” Ron barked lividly. “He tried to eat Pig!”

“That is _not_ a pig,” Draco said, confused.

“It's name is Pig,” Remus explained quietly. “It's his owl.”

The puff of feathers whistled softly. Ron glared. “Keep your monster away from Pig.”

“Keep your feather duster away from Euphrates,” Draco countered and continued on up the stairs.

Ron looked at him incredulously as he passed. “You named your owl Euphrates?”

“My mother named him,” Draco spat back. He stalked down the hall. The door of the room was open; Euphrates hooted from the back of the desk chair. Draco kicked the door closed. He huffed and patted Euphrates's head. “Don't eat Weasley's puffball.”

Euphrates blinked at him and hooted again. Draco sank onto the edge of the bed, propped his elbows on his knees, dropped his face into his hands, then scrubbed his fingers through his hair and flopped onto his back. At least there weren't posters on the ceiling. He closed his eyes.

Next thing he knew, there was a knock at the door. He blinked his eyes open and had just sat up when the door was nudged open and Remus leaned in, a mug of tea in each hand. “Hey. Thought you might like some tea.” He proffered one of the mugs.

Draco rubbed at his eyes. “Is this an excuse to try to talk to me?”

“Well, yes,” Remus admitted. “Do you want the tea?”

With a sigh, Draco held out a hand to accept the mug. Remus gave him the tea, shut the door, and sat in the desk chair Euphrates had been perched on—the owl was now huddled asleep next to his cage on top of the chifforobe. Draco sipped his tea without speaking. Remus let him. Eventually, Draco asked, “What time is it?”

“Little past four. The twins got here a little while ago and have volunteered to help make dinner—we're all very nervous.”

Draco snorted. “You should be.”

“Probably.” Remus chuckled. “I trust Molly to not let them poison us.”

Draco rotated his mug in his hands, then looked around the room. “This used to be Sirius's room, didn't it?”

Remus eyed the nearest age-faded muggle poster of a girl in a bikini draped across the hood of a muscle car. “What was your first clue?”

“No idea,” Draco snarked, eyeing the same poster. “Just a hunch.”

Remus grinned and looked around. His eyes settled on the top of the chifforobe. “What did you say your owl's name is?”

“Euphrates.”

“He's beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Draco watched his bird sleep for a moment. “He was a gift for my eleventh birthday.”

“From your mother?”

Draco nodded. “I actually got him right after I first met Potter.”

Remus tilted his head. “Did you not first meet Harry at school?”

“No.” Draco put down his tea. “We met in Diagon Alley before term started. I had no idea who he was.” Draco laughed coldly. “I thought we might be friends…”

“You still might be,” Remus said. Draco shot him a skeptical glare. Remus shrugged. “Time, circumstances, and what you know can change who your friends are, who your enemies are, even who you are.”

Draco shook his head. “I don't think so.”

Remus shrugged. “Too soon to say.” He looked around the room again. “Is this all your things?”

Draco fidgeted and shrugged. “Didn't feel the need to bring much besides clothes and a few books.”

“Not even your broom?”

“What would I do with it?”

“Fair enough.” He paused a moment. “Been to see your parents recently?”

Draco crossed his arms and leaned one shoulder against the headboard. “I've been visiting my mother.”

“What about your father?” Remus asked innocently.

“I'm not terribly inclined to visit Azkaban, with or without dementors.”

“Even to visit your father?” Remus crossed his legs, propping one ankle on the opposite knee.

Draco shrugged. “It's his own fault he's there.”

“Does your mother know you haven't been to see him?”

“Yeah.” Draco shrugged again. “At least, she knows I haven't said anything to her about seeing him.”

“Has she said anything about that?”

“No.” Draco glowered at him, daring him to push.

Unfazed, Remus held his palms up. “Just my two cents, but I think you ought to see him.”

“That's none of your business.”

“Maybe not.” Remus gave an odd half-nod to the side. “But I'd expect your father would want to see you.”

“My father wanted me to be a Death Eater,” Draco muttered.

Remus sighed. “Your mother's glad to see you when you visit, isn't she?”

“Of course she is.” Draco rolled his eyes.

“Your father would be, too.”

Draco snorted. They sat in silence for a while, then Mrs. Weasley's voice called up the stairs that dinner was ready. Remus sighed, stood, and took Draco's abandoned mug. “C'mon,” he prompted gently, “let's go eat.”

“I'm not that hungry,” Draco muttered.

“Molly only half believes you actually got yourself lunch. If you don't come down, she will come up.”

With a huff, Draco stood and followed Remus down to the kitchen. Dinner was laid out in the center of the table: sausages and fried potatoes with scrambled eggs, which was all well and good except—“The eggs are green,” Draco said, horrified. “Why are the eggs green?”

“Because we can,” George said gleefully.

“No magic required,” Fred added.

“And it's totally harmless!” they said together.

“I made the mistake of telling them about a primary school science experiment,” Hermione sighed as she loaded her plate.

“Red cabbage juice?” Harry asked.

“Yup.” Hermione settled into a seat.

Harry half shrugged, loading his own plate. “At least there's not green ham.”

Hermione half choked with unexpected laughter. Draco was confused, but he took solace in the fact no one else seemed to be in on the joke. At a questioning look from Ron, Harry waved a hand and said, “There's a muggle children's book called _Green Eggs and Ham_.”

“I think I want that book,” George concluded.

Draco got a plate and picked at his food—it tasted fine, despite its verdigris, he just really didn't feel like eating. Mrs. Weasley kept looking at him; he made a show of taking a bite every time she did.

After dinner, the twins excused themselves to Diagon Ally and the flat above their shop. Remus helped clear away the dishes and then—once they were scrubbing themselves in the sink—he got down one of the two ornate glass-and-silver wine jugs that had been pressed into service to hold wolfsbane potion and poured goblets of it for himself and Draco. Draco took the cup, Remus gave him a tight, long-suffering smile, and they both drank. By sheer force of will, Draco didn't gag. He put his goblet in the sink to wash, went up to his room, let Euphrates out, and went to bed.

He spent most of the next day holed up in his room, reading, the door all but closed. He only went downstairs for meals. At some point, Granger's ugly, bow-legged, squash-faced, orange rats' nest of a cat slunk in to investigate him. It hopped up on his bed, sniffed at him, made an odd chuffing sound, then curled up against his hip. He held his book awkwardly to the side, one arm half-raised, and stared at the cat, reluctant to touch it for fear of being clawed. “What d'you want?” he asked without enough energy to really come across as venomous.

The cat looked up at him, twitched its tail once, closed its amber eyes, and started to purr.

Draco sneered. “What're you purring about? I haven't done anything for you.”

The cat ignored him. He cautiously resumed reading. Within three chapters, he'd wound up with the cat sprawled across his chest, half draped over his shoulder, getting ginger fur all over his white shirt. At least the little beast was soft.

At the end of the day, Draco showered, magically rid his sheets of cat hair, and went to bed.

_Thick grey fog twisted through the half-light like snakes. Shadowy figures, ominous in their featurelessness, wandered at the edges of Draco's vision—if he turned to look at them, they weren't there. He shouted at them, but his voice was distant and echoey. Another figured approached from the fog, tall, slender, and hooded like a dementor but more solid. Draco tried to step back, to get away, but his back was to a wall. The hooded figure closed in on him. It reached out one sickly pale arm, trailed a long, bony finger up his arm to his throat, then grabbed him by the jaw so he couldn't turn away. It lifted its other hand to seize the front of its hood, to pull it back—_

Draco woke with a start. Heart pounding, he sat up and rubbed his hands over his face. From the sill of the open window, Euphrates gave a soft, low hoot. Draco took a breath, got up from bed, and went to lean across the desk to pet his owl. A gentle breeze lifted his fine, disheveled hair. Light from the lamps in the courtyard below threw the twisted ridges of the scar on his left arm into sharp relief. He shivered, rubbed at his arm, pulled his dressing gown out of the chifforobe, sighed, and let himself out into the hallway. He knew this routine. He wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon.

He wandered the house, making circuits of each floor, looking at the portraits and paintings that lined the halls, before going down to the next. He made it to the ground floor, went into the music room, and started absently flipping through an old book of sheet music, most of it obviously but neatly handwritten. He hummed the first few notes of a song titled in what he was pretty sure was Russian, then nearly jumped out of his skin when someone spoke, “Draco, dear, what are you doing up?”

Mrs. Weasley was standing in the doorway in her own many-times-patched dressing gown, one hand on the doorknob. Draco crossed his arms protectively. “I woke up.”

Mrs. Weasley made an understanding sound and stepped out of the doorway. “I was thinking I might make myself some hot cocoa. I'll make you some, too.”

“Uh.” Too tired to quickly come up with a reasonable way to refuse, Draco nodded and followed her down to the kitchen. She got out a saucepan, milk, cocoa powder, and sugar, and set about making the warm drinks. He sat near the end of the table, eyes on the floor, unable to bring himself to look at Mrs. Weasley. He picked at the hem of his dressing gown. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” she asked casually.

“Being so... _nice_ to me.”

She scoffed. “Why shouldn't I be, dear?”

He fidgeted, waved a hand, shrugged, then laced his fingers together too hard. “I've said some really nasty things about you….”

“I know,” she said simply. “But it's two o'clock in the morning and I know what someone chased out of bed by nightmares looks like.” Draco straightened up stiffly. Mrs. Weasley gave him a sad smile. “Don't be so proud; happens to everyone in this house.” She poured the cocoa into two mugs, gave one to Draco, and pulled out a chair to sit across from him without the table in the way. He stared at the contents of his mug. She sipped hers. “Would you like to talk about it, dear?”

He shook his head. She nodded understandingly and reached out to rub his shoulder—it made him jump. He put his mug down on the table with a sharp _tack_ , got up to pace, and scrubbed his hands through his hair. His gaze caught on the two jugs of wolfsbane potion sitting atop the icebox, one of them half empty already. He tore his eyes away and leaned heavily on the table, head town. “What am I doing here?”

“I don't know. I think that's up to you. But what you're not doing is drinking your cocoa,” Mrs. Weasley said. Draco's head snapped up to look at her—he hadn't actually been expecting an answer. She gestured at his still-full mug. “Would you like marshmallows? I'm pretty sure we've got some around here somewhere.”

Draco blinked at her a moment. “No, thank you.” He dropped into the nearest seat and pulled his mug to him. He rotated it between his fingers. He could feel Mrs. Weasley watching him. He curled around his mug. “Everyone hates me,” he muttered.

Mrs. Weasley tutted. “That's not true.”

“Yes it is.”

She got up, came around the table, took the mug from his hands, set it aside, and pulled him into a hug. “I don't hate you.”

Draco froze. For a second he forgot how to breathe. He'd never been hugged like this—soft and warm. He took a breath. It shook. The next one shook worse. She stroked his hair. He'd started crying before he realized it, and he couldn't stop. She held him until he could.


	9. Chapter 9

Remus woke up the morning of the eighth to an empty bed with a crick in his neck. He sighed, sat up rubbing the sore tendon between his jaw and shoulder, and checked the clock. Still morning, Sirius must have gotten up early. Remus got up, got dressed, and went down to breakfast. Sirius was sitting next to Arthur, a motorbike owner's manual open on the table between them. Remus sat to Sirius's other side and helped himself to Sirius's plate. Ginny and Harry had their heads bowed together over a new Quibbler. There was a stack of mail sitting on the corner of the table, a Daily Prophet on the bottom, Errol, Euphrates, and Pigwidgeon perched next to it, squabbling over bacon. Remus reached for the paper with one hand, his orange juice with the other. He shook out the paper, folded it over, read the headline, and nearly choked. He smacked Sirius's shoulder to get his attention then held the paper for him to see. Sirius stood up so fast the bike manual fell off the table. “I'm gonna fucking kill him.”

Everyone at the table stared. “Headline today,” Remus said, pulling Sirius back down into his chair, “'Auror Missing Since 1981 Found in Roundup of Fugitive Death Eaters, Confesses to Framing Sirius Black.'”

“I fucking knew it,” Sirius spat. “I knew Voldemort had to have somebody on the inside. Only explanation for why nobody ever bothered to check my wand or give me veritaserum.”

“Wait,” Draco looked up from his usual silence at the corner of the table, “did you not have a trial?”

“No.” Sirius got up again and stalked over to the coffee pot. “No trial, no interrogation, no nothing. I was arrested and dragged straight to Azkaban.” He poured himself a cup and downed it. “I hope that bastard has a hell of a time in prison.”

“Auror in Azkaban,” Arthur said with a bob of his head, “I think you'll get your wish.”

“Arthur,” Molly chided. “I'm glad you feel vindicated, Sirius. On a more positive note, Harry, dear, your birthday's coming up. I'm throwing you a party.”

Harry looked up, startled. “What? I mean, thank you. I mean—”

“I'm going to write to Neville Longbottom,” Molly continued. “If he wants, I'll throw him a party, too.”

Harry nodded. “I think he'd appreciate that.”

After breakfast, Hermione caught Remus in the hallway. “Hey, can I ask you some stuff, for my writing? Or is today not good for that, with tonight being the full moon?”

He sighed. “It's fine, but let me shower first.”

“Of course, of course.” Hermione held up her hands. “Go ahead. I'll be in the sitting room.” She flashed him a smile.

He nodded and headed upstairs. When he stepped out of the shower, Sirius was sitting on the bed waiting for him. He held out Remus's pants to him. “Hello, gorgeous.”

Remus snorted, “Shut up.” He toweled off his hair, tossed his towel aside, snatched his pants from Sirius, and put them on. “You still plotting murder again?”

“I've decided to trust the good madmen of Azkaban with his torture.” Sirius showed his teeth. “I know a few guys who'll do him right.”

Remus shook his head. “I never know how to feel when you say shit like that.”

Sirius shrugged and watched Remus get dressed. “I'm joining you for your Q and A with Hermione.”

“Alright.” Remus shrugged on a shirt. “Why?”

“Curious what she'll ask and what you'll have to say.” He pushed up from the mattress, stepped in front of Remus, and did up his buttons for him. “I missed twelve years of you, too. You still haven't really told me what you were up to.”

“I was a hobo. There's not much to tell.”

“I don't believe that for a second.” Sirius opened the door. Remus rolled his eyes and they went down to the sitting room where Hermione was waiting for them.

She was sitting on the floor, quill in hand, a roll of parchment unrolled across the low table in front of her, copying from a pile of notes scribbled on scraps. She glanced up at them. “Just a second.”

“Okay.” Remus sat in one of the plush chairs. Sirius sat on him, but Remus shoved him out of his lap.

With a look of mock betrayal, Sirius settled into his own chair. “Not interrogating blondie today?”

“He...is writing letters for his parents and told me to piss off,” Hermione said slowly. She finished a sentence with a flourish and looked up. “He's honestly probably not going to be very helpful at the moment anyway.”

“Fair enough,” Remus said. He leaned his elbows on his knees. “You have questions.”

“Yes.” She held up one of the larger scraps of scribbles. “Starting with general things I can't find good answers for. So, everyone knows lycanthropy is transferred from werewolves to humans by biting.”

“Right,” Remus agreed. He rubbed absently at his side while Sirius nodded.

“But it doesn't pass to animals?” Hermione asked.

“It doesn't seem to.” Remus glanced at Sirius. “To be fair, other animals don't get bitten very often, they don't trigger aggression the way humans do. That said, if it did pass to animals, Hogwarts would be home to quite a few were-thestrals.”

Hermione's head snapped up from her note taking.

“The damn things had a knack for pissing him off,” Sirius explained.

“I'm sure,” Hermione said, “but, could you see them? I mean, as a wolf could you, and could you ordinarily?

“As a wolf, yes,” Remus said. “Ordinarily, no. Not back then. Now, well, good luck finding anyone who can't.”

Hermione sighed. “Yeah. So, werewolves can see thestrals without having seen death. Sirius, can animagi do that?”

“Nope.” Sirius leaned back in his chair. “As I'm sure you can imagine, the rest of us were pretty damn confused the first time Moony got into a fight with one. I mean, we could smell the thing, but we didn't know what we were smelling.”

“I'm sure that was disconcerting.” Hermione made a note. “Can lycanthropy be passed to an animagus who is transformed?”

“Don't know, not inclined to test it,” Remus said quickly.

“Fair enough,” Hermione said. “But, obviously, to a werewolf, a transformed animagus registers as an animal not a human.”

“Right,” Remus confirmed.

“What about centaurs or other non-human persons?”

“You'll want to ask a centaur—probably Firenze—to confirm this, but what I've heard is that a werewolf bite is invariably fatal to centaurs. Which is why they tend to be aggressive toward us….” Remus sighed. “The herd at Hogwarts, at least, operate on more of a 'leave us be, we'll leave you be' basis, but there are some herds who'll kill werewolves on sight. I had an uncomfortably close call with one such herd in France.”

“You never mentioned that,” Sirius growled.

“Because I knew it would just piss you off. It's not like you can do anything about it. Anyway,” Remus continued, “Vampires are immune, but they're creepy so they tend to provoke aggression. Giants are immune. Most werewolves run the hell away from giants just because getting stepped on would be bad. I don't know about goblins, but half goblins are susceptible. Yes, I met a half-goblin werewolf. Strange bloke. Welsh. Never ran into a veela and it never came up talking to anyone else. Ask Fleur—who knows, she might have family stories about her grandmother. This might just be me, but I find merpeople oddly calming. I think they must be immune because they never seem frightened of me, they'll even sometimes surface and pet me. Uh, house-elves tend to run away but they're not very interesting and I'm pretty sure they're immune. At the very least, I've never heard of a house-elf being bitten.”

Hermione nodded. “That's something else I can inquire further about,” Hermione muttered, mostly to herself. “Is it possible to be born a werewolf?”

“Yes, it is.” Remus steepled his fingers. “As far as I know, I've never met anyone who was, and there are only a couple of confirmed cases around the world of a child inheriting lycanthropy, but there are endless anecdotal accounts. I briefly knew a woman who claimed to know someone who'd been born a werewolf. I've actually been asked more than once, including by that woman, if I'd inherited it—I suspect because I was bitten so young I may share some traits and tendencies with born werewolves.”

Hermione hummed curiously. “That would make sense.”

“Incidentally,” Sirius muttered, “that's why Remus doesn't shag women.”

“Sirius,” Remus warned.

“It's true. You're paranoid as hell about knocking anyone up.”

“Did you miss the bit where I've been dating you since we were teenagers?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “Did you miss the bit where I was in prison for more than a decade and, as you've told me yourself, the only relationships you consummated during that time were with men?”

“Well, I'm really missing being viewed as a child,” Hermione said loudly without looking up from the notes she was scribbling.

Sirius laughed. Remus ran a hand over his face, “Sirius Orion Black, one of these days I'm going to either strangle or maul you in your sleep depending on the time of the month.”

“No you're not.” Sirius kept laughing.

Hermione pressed her lips together. “Remus?”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever heard of someone contracting lycanthropy any way other than being bitten? Scratches, blood transfusion, anything like that?”

Remus thought about it a moment then shook his head. “No. Bites in human form have some effect, see Bill, but I don't know of anything other than a bite doing it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “There was a scare one time when I did scratch James rather badly, but he was fine. Blood transfusions are uncommon in Healing, I don't think it's ever come up.”

“Might just be him,” Sirius began, “but he's worried enough about the whole human-form-bite-transmission issue that he will not put any part of anyone else's body in his mouth for any reason. Not even—”

Remus smacked a hand over Sirius's mouth. “That's my own idiosyncrasy, and I don't think she needs details.”

“No, I don't, I'm fine,” Hermione confirmed quickly. “Next question.” She referenced her list. “What is there by way of werewolf subculture? I know you've had pretty significant contact with others, Dumbledore had you trying to recruit, but how do you find each other?”

“It's a small world.” Remus shrugged. “For the most part, find one, ask them to point you to someone else. There aren't very many of us, and we're pretty spread out, so there's not much of a culture, just a loose network. There are a handful of werewolf communities, a couple here in Britain but more on the continent..” He carefully considered his next words. “They make me uncomfortable. They're all extremely insular, most of them are rather cultish, and the extent to which they actively remove themselves from society I find unlivable. Some of them ban wolfsbane potion within the community—something about the sanctity of the transformation that I cannot agree with.”

Sirius shot him a look. “Did you join one of them?”

“I visited,” Remus corrected. “I left after a week. I did stay with a group near Kent for a while. They're more benign isolationists than most. And they do allow wolfsbane potion.”

Hermione scribbled. There was a knock at the half open door, and Ginny leaned in. “Hermione, do you have a minute?”

“Um, I can.” She finished what she was writing, pulled her wand to clear all her notes and writing utensils away, then got to her feet. “What do you need?”

“Girltalk.” Ginny gave her a meaningful look.

“Right.” Hermione hustled to the door, and tossed over her shoulder, “Thank you, we can get through the rest some other time,” before she and Ginny slipped out.

Remus kept his eyes on the door a few seconds then turned to Sirius. “Am I the only one having flashbacks to Lily and Alice?”

“Oh, no,” Sirius chuckled. “Not at all. What's the bet Harry said something and has no idea she's ticked?”

“Said something or did something,” Remus agreed.


	10. Chapter 10

After dinner, Remus and Draco had their requisite doses of potion from the half-empty second claret jug. Ron picked up Remus's goblet, pondered it a moment, sniffed curiously at the dregs of its contents, and frowned. “Is this stuff dangerous? I mean, would it kill me if I licked it?”

“No, it would not harm you, but I can't recommend it,” Remus said mildly.

Ron shrugged, dipped his finger in the sludge at the bottom of the goblet, put it in his mouth, and proceeded to gag.

“He told you it was a bad idea,” Draco drawled as Ron, clearly trying not to be sick, clumsily poured and chugged a cup of lukewarm tea.

“That is vile,” Ron gasped.

“Yes,” Remus agreed with a grin, “it is.”

The twins shared a look. Fred stretched across the table to snag Draco's goblet, he and George each tried and fingerful, and they grimaced. Ron pushed the teapot toward them. They didn't bother with cups, slurping directly from the spout.

“That is absolutely rank.” George inspected the dregs with an intense frown.

Fred's eyes went wide and he turned to his twin. “I don't think there's a Bertie Bott's of this shit.”

“There's not,” Remus confirmed. “Never has been.”

“Every flavor my arse.” George slammed the goblet down on the table. “Fred, we must rectify this oversight.”

“ _Th_ _at_ is where you immediately go with this?” Draco asked.

“Yes,” both twins said before returning their attention to each other.

“We're not going to just give Bertie Bott's a formula.”

“No, no. We'll make our own Wolfsbane candies.”

“Yes.” Fred rubbed his hands together. “Yes, good.”

“They're insane,” Draco said to the room at large.

“Yeah, but they make a mint,” Ron pointed out.

“We're geniuses.” The twins grinned.

George produced a tiny bottle from one of his pockets, drained the dregs of the goblets into it, then corked it and pocketed it again. “Fred, I do believe we have a project.”

“I do believe you're right.” Fred held an arm out to his brother. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” George looped his arm through Fred's and they disapparated.

Remus shook his head. “It's frightening how much like James and Sirius they are sometimes.”

“Who's like me and James?” Sirius asked, coming downstairs balancing a teetering stack of coffee and teacups to be washed.

“The twins,” Ron provided.

“Ah, yes. Wonderful successors to have.” Sirius grinned. He set the cups in the sink. “Harry and Ginny were telling me that last month you kids were joking about putting us three on leads and taking us to the dog run?”

Ron ducked his head a little. “Yeah, that thought came up.”

Draco glared at him. “I am _not_ wearing a lead.”

Ron put his hands up. “It was just a joke.”

“I actually wouldn't be opposed,” Remus said musingly. “Been a while since I've been outside on the moon.”

Sirius grinned. “We could play ball without getting yelled at.”

Draco huffed and stood. “You are astonishingly undignified.” He headed for the stairs.

Remus went after him. “He is the sort of person whose animagus form is a great big fluffy dog.”

“And if the choice is between being a goof and having fun, and being dignified and depressed…” Sirius said pointedly as he came up the stairs behind them.

“I'd go with goof,” Ron said from behind Sirius.

“Butt out, Weasley,” Draco snapped.

“Draco!” Molly chided from the door of the sitting room, where most of the others were gathered. “Don't be rude, dear.”

“He's not part of this conversation.” Draco crossed his arms defiantly.

“I think I am,” Ron protested.

Remus held up a hand in a gesture to be still. “Ron, you don't have the best grounds right now. Draco, he's entitled to his opinion, and, in _my_ opinion, he's right.” He shared a long-suffering look with Molly. She sighed, shook her head, then went down the hall to go upstairs. “Hey, Harry,” Remus said, stepping into the doorway Molly had just vacated, “I hear you were considering taking us to the dog run last month.”

“You cannot be seriously considering this,” Draco said. Remus ignored him.

“Yeah,” Harry said. “Not really, though. We couldn't. Parks close at dark.”

“There's one across town that's open overnight,” Hermione said to the notes she was copying over from earlier. “It has lights.” Everyone stared at her. After a moment she looked up. “What? I got curious so I looked into it.”

Harry gave Remus a look like he couldn't tell if he was joking. “Would you want to go the dog run?”

Remus shrugged. “I'm not opposed.” Something large, warm, and fluffy collided with his hip, making him stumble. He scratched Padfoot's head without looking down. “Sirius thinks it would be fun.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “We can do that then.”

“I'm getting dragged along with this madness whether I want to be or not, aren't I?” Draco asked in horror.

“I won't make you come,” Remus assured him.

“He won't, but I will,” Sirius said as he straightened up and dusted his trousers off.

“Sirius,” Remus warned.

“If we leave him behind he's just going to sulk.” Sirius put an arm around Draco's shoulders. “Not counting quidditch, when's the last time you played outside?”

“I'm not a child,” Draco sneered and shoved Sirius's arm off.

“Too damn long then,” Sirius concluded.


	11. Chapter 11

Draco could not believe he'd allowed himself to be roped into this. The collar was more stifling than any shirt or tie he'd ever worn, he felt like it was going to make him gag. It was not helping at all that London _st_ _a_ _nk_. He'd never realized before quite how disgusting the city was, full of rubbish ripened by the summer sun, fumes from the sewers and too many cars, stale beer, and sweat. At least Hermione wasn't lording over him the ridiculous formality that was the lead. And at least the park was only a few blocks away. Draco resented the fact that apparating with werewolves was, according to Sirius, “not the best idea.”

Ron was to Hermione's other side, walking hand in hand with her. Ahead of them, Ginny had Sirius's lead and Harry had Remus's. When they finally got to the park, Hermione unlatched Draco's collar and murmured, “I'm sorry, it's the law though.”

Draco shook himself then flopped on the grass. It prickled. And it was too green. Off his own lead, Sirius bounded across the run, then trotted back, tail wagging, tongue lolling out of his mouth. Draco huffed. He watched disinterestedly while Harry produced a tennis ball and threw it; Sirius and Remus raced after it. Sirius was faster with his long legs, but Remus was more agile. This resulted in Sirius overbalancing and tumbling over while Remus smugly trotted back, tennis ball in mouth. Draco huffed again.

After a while, Remus came over, pawed at Draco's shoulder, and gave him a curious look. Draco glowered. Remus sat in front of him, looking at him expectantly. Draco swiveled one ear. Remus tilted his head. A few paces away, Sirius barked and postured, elbows on the ground, butt in the air, tail wagging. Sitting on the grass next to Draco, Hermione stretched. “Hey, Harry, toss me the ball?” He did, she fumbled catching it but picked it up and tossed it back and forth between her hands. “Harry, have you ever played a game of quidditch against Draco where he caught the snitch, not you?”

Draco sat up quickly. Harry ran a hand over his jaw. “I don't think so, no.”

“I haven't either,” Ginny said.

“I wonder if that holds up catching tennis balls,” Hermione said with a smirk.

Draco got to his feet, crouched ready to run, and growled. He knew she was baiting him but, damn her, it worked. Harry grinned. “Let's find out.”

Hermione stood and threw the ball. Harry and Draco both ran after it. Draco tackled Harry's legs, knocking him over, grabbed the ball in his mouth, and trotted back toward Hermione with his head held high.

“Cheater,” Harry accused, getting back to his feet and brushing grass off himself.

Draco dropped the ball in front of Sirius, then flopped back down in front of Hermione. She gave his shoulder a pat. Ginny got to her feet. “You think you're done, Malfoy?” she challenged. “Let's do this.”

When they got back to Grimmauld Place in the small hours of the morning, all seven of them were exhausted and covered in grass and dirt. Draco was pretty sure he was more green and brown than white. None of them made it down to breakfast the next day until it was time for lunch.


	12. Chapter 12

The next weekend, Molly went to get Neville to bring him to the house for purposes of birthday party planning. When they got there, Neville got hugs from Harry, Hermione, Ginny, and Ron. Then he spotted Draco. “Malfoy?” he asked, confused. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here, Longbottom,” Draco said with mild disdain.

Hermione shoved his shoulder. “Be nice.”

“I'm not nice,” he said sternly, then he smirked.

She rolled her eyes. “Long story,” Hermione said to Neville. “He's reforming. But come on”—she took Neville and Harry each by the hand and dragged them to the sitting room—“you boys have important birthday party decisions to make, don't they, Molly?”

“They sure do,” Mrs. Weasley agreed, following them to the sitting room. Tucked up in an armchair in the corner, Remus looked up as the two boys, Hermione, and Mrs. Weasley came in, then returned to his book.

“I wouldn't know where to start,” Harry half laughed, dropping onto a sofa. “I've never had a birthday party before,”

“I've only ever had little ones with my family,” Neville said, sitting next to Harry. He shrugged and laced his fingers together. “Most years I just visit my parents.”

“Which of course you can still do, dear,” Molly said gently.

Neville nodded. “Thank you.”

Remus turned a page in his book. “Would you mind if I went with you?”

“Huh?” Neville looked around at him, startled.

Remus gave a half shrug. “I was friends with them, once upon a time. Haven't had a chance to visit.”

Neville nodded again slowly. “If you'd like, sure. Figure they'll be glad to see you, they like having visitors. Gran says they don't know the difference between one person and another, but she's wrong.” He gave a tight smile. “I'd be happy to bring you along.”

“Thank you,” Remus said soberly. He smiled and gestured between Harry and Neville. “You know, if things had gone differently, the two of you would've grown up having birthday parties together.”

Harry looked to Neville. “That would have been cool.”

“Yeah,” Neville agreed.

Remus closed his book, a look of realization on his face. “You don't know you've shared a party before.”

“What?” Neville and Harry asked, both leaning around to look at Remus better.

“Your first birthdays,” he explained. “The party was really more for your parents' sake than yours”—he grinned—“but you did seem to enjoy smearing icing all over each other's faces.”

Harry and Neville looked at one another, pleasantly bemused.

“On the subject of cake,” Mrs. Weasley said. “You each get one. What sort would you like?”

“Chocolate,” Harry said without having to think.

Mrs. Weasley smiled. “Of course, dear. Neville what would you like?”

“I like lemon cake,” Neville said.

“Lemon cake it is,” Mrs. Weasley said fondly, making a note of the cake preferences.

“Who all do you want to invite?” Hermione asked. “Other than who's living here anyway.”

“Luna,” Neville said.

Harry nodded. “Dean and Seamus.”

“Cho?” Neville suggested.

“Yeah.” Harry grinned. “And Hannah.”

“And the Patil twins. Oh, and Lee Jordan.”

“And Angelina.”

“And Katie.” Neville thought for a moment. “Is that everybody?”

“I think so,” Harry said. “How many people is that?”

“Including the two of you and us of your schoolmates living here,” Hermione said, “sixteen.”

Harry grinned. “This is going to be fun.”

Neville held up a hand and Harry high fived him. Mrs. Weasley smiled at them. “I suggest you boys start writing out invitations.”

 

The week before the back-to-back parties, a letter arrived from Charlie Weasley saying he was taking some time off and was going to visit. When he showed up at Grimmauld place two days later, the first words out of his mother's mouth were, “Good heavens, Charlie! What happened to your arm?”

“What, this?” Charlie gestured to the bandages around his left arm from the top of his shoulder to his elbow. “It's nothing. Don't worry about it.” He hugged his sister.

“Are you on medical leave?” Molly demanded.

“I'm _fine,_ Mum.”

Ron sauntered up next to his older brother and poked him squarely in the shoulder. Charlie yelped and jumped away. Ron arched an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, look, I got a little bit burned. It's not serious, just still a little tender.”

“Did you get attacked by a dragon again?” Ginny asked, sounding almost impressed. Molly looked horrified.

“No, no.” Charlie held up his palms. “It didn't attack me. It was a juvenile, still growing into its firebreathing. It was just playing, and I got in the way.” He shrugged. “I'm fine, really.”

Molly tutted disapprovingly, “This keeps happening to you, Charles. I, for one, don't like it,” and ushered her children to the sitting room, where there was a platter of sandwiches waiting on the table.

Harry was sitting on one of the couches, holding a half-eaten sandwich. He raised a hand in greeting to Charlie, swallowed, then said, “Hey.”

“Hey.” Charlie took off his bag and sat across from Harry. He grinned, dug through his bag, pulled out a small covered cage, set it on the table, then grabbed a sandwich.

Molly eyed the coved cage with suspicion. It rattled and she glared. “Charlie, what is that?”

Mouth full, Charlie reached out to snag the cover off the cage. Inside were four tiny dragons. Charlie finished chewing. “Totally harmless. Technically, they're not even alive.”

Harry's mouth fell open. “These are from the Triwizard tournament!” He picked up the cage. “I wondered where they went.”

Charlie shrugged. “By the end of the year, you all'd pretty much forgotten about them—for good reason, but you had. I thought they were cute, so I just, y'know, took them.”

Harry opened the cage, coaxed out the tiny Hungarian Horntail, and held it up in his palm. “Does Fluer know you have these?”

“No.” Charlie ran a hand through his hair, which had grown out quite a bit since his forced haircut the summer before. “She and Bill are still living here, yeah?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “They won't be moving back to Tinworth until Bill starts working again. The two of them are at the bank today to talk to his bosses, actually. He's getting bored, but Fleur's not terribly fond of the idea of him running all over the world again just yet.”

Charlie made a dismissive sound. “He'll be fine. The twins are at their shop?”

“Of course,” Ron said. “Dad and Percy are at work—”

“They're always at work right now,” Ginny said. She took the little Horntail from Harry and tickled it, prompting a tiny snort of flame. “Course, they both get overtime and Dad's got a raise, so that's good.”

“The extra money's mostly going to fixing up the Burrow.” Molly gave a heavy sigh. “It's taking longer than I'd hoped.”

“Well, the whole thing just about has to be rebuilt from the ground up,” Ron pointed out. Harry nodded.


	13. Chapter 13

Remus got up early the morning of the thirtieth, leaving Sirius snoring alone in bed. He got dressed and went down to the kitchen, where only Molly and Arthur were already up.

“Coffee, Remus?” Molly offered quietly.

“Yes, thank you.” Remus sat across from Arthur. “When did you get in last night? I must've already gone to bed.”

Arthur shook his head and sighed. “I didn't leave the office until after eleven.”

“I told him he should sleep in this morning,” Molly said as she set Remus's coffee in front of him.

“I would, but there's too much to do,” Arthur explained around a bite of toast. “It's not just that I've moved departments again. We're cobbling together a whole new Muggle Relations department out of old ones, including the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office, but all the legislation is under review. Every day we get news of laws being changed or repealed or passed—don't get me wrong, Kingsley's doing the right thing, a lot of the pertinent legislation dates from the turn of the century, some of it's from as far back as the Middle Ages, an update is long overdue but it does create a lot of hassle.” He huffed. “On top of that, we're taking on quite a few new hires, so there're resumes to read and interviews to hold. I wish more muggle borns were applying.”

“You could ask Hermione if she'd be willing to work for you, at least temporarily,” Remus suggested over his coffee.

Arthur blinked at him as though seeing him for the first time. “That's a great idea.”

“Remus, can I fix you anything?” Molly asked.

“No, thank you, Molly.” Remus offered her a thin smile. “Just coffee's fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “I'm making you oatmeal. I swear, you look like you weigh about the same as Ginny but you're a foot taller.”

Remus sighed. “Nine inches.” Arthur gave him a quizzical look. Remus shrugged. “I'm the same height as Fred and George, and they're nine inches taller than Ginny, so _I'm_ nine inches taller than Ginny.”

Without looking around from making oatmeal, Molly put a hand on her hip. “I presume they just know off the top of their heads how much taller they are than their sister?”

“They seem to know the height differences between every member of your family off the top of their heads,” Remus said.

Molly sighed. “I do not know what to make of those boys….”

 

Once he'd finished enough oatmeal for Molly to excuse him, Remus went into London. He and Neville had agreed to meet out front of the book shop across the street from St. Mungo's. He looked around but didn't see Neville anywhere yet, so he leaned casually against the brick between the bookshop and the neighboring tax office. A young muggle woman in a burgundy tanktop with her hair pinned up into two tiny buns stepped out of the bookshop, perched herself on the windowsill next to him, and pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of her purse. Remus could feel her eyes on him as she lit up. She took a drag, let it out, and smiled up at him. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Remus said without looking at her, eyes on the passing crowds, watching for Neville.

She stood. “You work around here?”

“Nope.”

She faltered for a moment, then held out her lighter and offered, “Need a light?”

Remus studied her briefly—something about her chipped black nail polish seemed wrong against her pink heart-patterned lighter. “I don't smoke.”

“Oh. Well….” She glanced down and fiddled awkwardly with her cigarette.

Blessedly, Neville came up the sidewalk just then. Remus waved to him, pushed away from the wall, and met him a little ways down the block. Neville smiled politely, hands in his pockets. “Morning, Professor.”

“I haven't been your professor for years,” Remus said wryly as they crossed the street. “You are allowed to call me by name.”

“Right, uh, morning, then, Lupin.”

Remus snorted. “Good enough. Morning, Neville.”

They stepped through the shopfront facade of the hospital into the waiting room, which, as usual, was a sight to behold. Remus and Neville exchanged a look of sympathetic horror over some poor bloke who'd gotten a broomstick shoved up somewhere a broomstick had no business being, then they continued on up to the fourth floor. Neville let them into the closed ward. The attending Healer looked up from straightening a cabinet of supplies near the door when they walked in. She smiled at them, then closed and locked the cabinet. “Good morning, Neville.” She glanced briefly at Remus. “Your Gran's not with you today?”

“No, not this time,” Neville said civilly.

The Healer gave him a knowing look and planted her hands on her full hips. “Today's your birthday, isn't it? I think that makes you eighteen now?”

“Yes, ma'am.” Neville nodded toward the far end of the ward. “Are they awake yet?”

“Oh, yes.” The Healer let out a breath. “Your mother's been up since before I started my shift—been knitting; Gilderoy taught himself out of a magazine a few weeks back and he's been trying to teach everyone else, bless him. Your father just woke up about twenty minutes ago.”

“Thank you.” Neville gave a subtle beckoning motion to Remus, then led the way down the ward to the last two beds, half hidden by a curtain. As they stepped around the curtain, Remus could see that one of the beds was empty, in the other bed were Frank and Alice, both thin and gaunt. Alice's hair had gone prematurely white and Frank's was mostly grey. They were sitting up next to each other, Frank with a ball of yarn in his lap, watching the slow, deliberate movements of Alice's needles as she knitted. “Hi, Mum, Dad,” Neville said softly.

Frank looked up, but Alice didn't seem to register that anything had been said. Frank blinked at them. Alice got to the end of her row, carefully set her knitting down, looked up at Neville, and made a peculiar gesture, brushing her index finger longways across her chin.

Neville smiled. “That's right, Mum.” He mirrored the gesture. “I'm your son.”

Alice nodded so faintly and slowly that the motion was easy to miss. Frank turned the ball of yarn over in his hands. Neville drew up a pair of chairs at the bedside and sat in one. Remus carefully took the other chair.

“I brought a friend of yours,” Neville said, indicating Remus. “You know Remus Lupin, right?” he prompted.

Frank and Alice turned their gazes to Remus and stared. Frank kept staring, but Alice looked away. She reached for the nightstand between the beds, tugged open the drawer, and picked up a lumpy, floppy, loosely knitted square, which she held out toward Neville. He took it, looked at it in wonder, then looked up at his mother. “Did you make this?”

Alice gave another of her slow, tiny nods.

Neville beamed and got up to hug her. “I love it. You did so good, Mum.”

Alice looked a little startled, her already over-wide eyes widening further, but she managed to awkwardly pat Neville's arm.

Still staring at Remus, Frank lifted a hand, paused, then traced a shape in the air with his thumb and forefinger. Neville tilted his head slightly. “Moon?” He looked at Remus. “Oh! Yes, yes, that's right.”

Remus smiled at Frank, fighting down a burning in the back of his throat. “It's been awhile, mate.”

It was nearly noon by the time Remus and Neville left the hospital. “Are you sure?” Neville asked.

Remus nodded. “She was making fun of me.”

Neville smiled at his feet then looked up. “No offense, but I'm really glad she was making fun of you.”

“Me too,” Remus agreed softly, “Me too.”

They apparated to the square at Grimmauld place, Remus led the way up to the door of number twelve, and opened it for Neville. Inside, the house had been decorated, bobbles and streamers festooned across the ceiling. Some of the bobbles periodically emitted puffs of confetti, others glowed bright, happy colours. A banner reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEVILLE was draped across the open doorway to the dining room. Under it stood most of Dumbledore's Army. Within seconds, Neville had been engulfed in a mass group hug. As the kids laughed and chit-chatted over the mounds of snack foods on the table, Sirius came up to Remus and elbowed him lightly in the ribs. “You have a good morning?”

Without taking his eyes off Neville, Remus said, “Wonderful, and awful, and I'm not talking about it right now.”

“Okay.” Sirius leaned on the opposite doorjamb, crossed his arms, and said loudly, “You all realize there are two entire other rooms on this floor, right? You don't have to cram in here.”

“This is where the food is,” Lee said, mouth full of tiny sandwich.

“Besides,” Cho said with a smile, “we kind of all like each other.” She laughed as the Patil twins each looped an arm around her. “It's nice to all be together.”

“And not fighting for our lives,” Ron added. The girls nodded.

It wasn't long before the entire party wound up sitting on the floor in the hall, playing one massive, three-deck game of exploding snap while helpfully hovering platters made their way up and down the hall with snacks. There was an unusually energetic explosion and everyone looked around at Seamus, whose hand of cards was smoldering. “I swear to God I didn't do anything.”

“You obviously did something,” Dean objected.

“These cards explode, it's in the name of the bloody game!” Seamus waved his cards emphatically.

“They do usually explode with a little less...vigor,” Luna said sagely.

“I didn't—” Seamus was cut off by the rest of the cards in his hand exploding one after the other. He yelped, dropped the cards, and slumped back against the wall with a groan. “I give up.”

Fred and George shared a look, then Fred said, “Hey, Finnigan?”

“Yeah?”

“How good are you at blowing shit up on purpose?”

“He's great,” Neville said quickly. Seamus grinned sheepishly and nodded.

“You want a job?” George offered.

Seamus blinked. “Huh?”

The Weasley twins shrugged. “We're hiring.”

“We could use research and development assistance,” Fred finished with a mischievous smile.

“Sure.” Seamus stretched and popped his slightly scorched knuckles. “If nothin' else, it'll get my dad to stop nagging me about working at the local pizza place.”

“Fantastic.” George pulled a roll of parchment out of thin air and let it unravel at Seamus's feet. “Read and sign.”

Hermione gave him a quizzical look. “Since when can you do wandless, wordless magic?”

“I can't. Not reliably.” George grinned. “That was slight of hand.”

“Yes, he's been walking around with a contract in his sleeve just in case.” Fred snickered.

“While we're at it,” George said, turning to Neville, “Serpent Slayer, you're good at plants and all the weird crap they do. You want a job?”

“Me?” Neville asked, bewildered.

“Yes, you,” the twins said together.

Neville shrugged. “Sure.”

George produced another contract from his other sleeve. “Happy birthday, you get a job. And a load of other shit, but you haven't got to unwrap this one.”

A little while later, the game of snap had broken up and the party had mostly moved back into the dining room. Molly came in, herding more floating platters of fresh food, and trailed by Draco. Most of the room stopped talking to stare at him. “What?” he spat at them.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dean asked. He looked around at Neville. “Did you _invite_ him?”

“I live here, shithead,” Draco said. “And if I didn't come eat voluntarily, Mrs. Weasley was liable to levitate me downstairs against my will.”

“What do you mean you live here?” Seamus demanded, stepping forward to place himself between Draco and Dean.

“It's kind of a long story,” Hermione interjected.

“I've got time.” Dean crossed his arms.

“Guys,” Neville said pleadingly, not that anyone was paying attention.

“Leave it be,” Remus spoke up in his teacher voice. Everyone shut up and looked at him. “Draco's not going to cause trouble, are you Draco?”

Draco held his hands up defensively. “I'm just here for a sandwich.”

“See?” Remus looked at Dean and Seamus. “You don't want to be the ones being gits, now, do you? So long as he's not causing trouble, you don't cause trouble. Okay?”

The two boys nodded.

“And Draco?” Remus said.

“Yes?”

“Apologize for calling Dean a shithead.”

Draco huffed but said, “I'm sorry, Thomas, you're not a shithead.”

“Good.” Remus snagged a brownie off a passing platter. The kids all looked around at each other, not sure what to do with themselves now that the impending fight had been defused.

“Neville, dear,” Molly said, “why don't you open your presents?”

“Oh, yeah.” Neville looked around at the sofa table stacked with gifts at the end of the room. “I forgot.” He laughed a little.

Angelina grabbed a package off the table and tossed it to Neville. “Who's it from?”

Neville flipped over the tag. “Fred and George. Well, I'm scared to open it now.”

“Don't be,” George said with a grin.

“It's _harmless_ ,” Fred added, wrapping an arm around Angelina's waist.

Neville shot him a distrusting glance but pulled off the violently purple paper anyway. It was a large, thick book. Neville read off the cover. “The Dancing, Pop-Up Encyclopedia of Herbology.” He flipped it open to a page with a pop-up of a devil's snare plant with a cutesy, smiling cartoon face happily waving its tendrils. He laughed. “This is insane. I love it.”

The twins grinned. “You're welcome.”

Luna, Hermione, Ginny, and Hannah all bowed their heads together, whispering, then Ginny slipped out of the room as Neville tore into his next present: a potted miniature rosebush from Cho.

He'd gotten through the next couple gifts by the time Ginny got back, carrying something draped in a blanket that was shaped suspiciously like a birdcage. She set it on the end of the dining table. “This is from me, Hannah, Hermione, and Luna.”

Neville lifted the blanket off and his mouth fell open. Remus thought the kid was going to start crying as he looked in the cage as its resident—a fluffy, reddish brown Maned Owl—blinked sleepily at him. Neville pulled the four girls into a tight hug. “Thank you so much.”

“You're very welcome,” Hermione said, smiling.

“His name's Carlisle,” Hannah added.

“He's beautiful.” Neville was smiling so hard it looked like it hurt.

“We figured you could use an owl,” Luna explained airily.

Neville laughed a little. “Yeah, yeah, I could. Thank you.”

They were interrupted by a commotion at the other end of the room. Draco was flat on his arse on the floor, Katie standing over him, fist still clenched from punching him while everyone else stared. He pressed his hand to his mouth and curled in on himself, muttering a string of muffled profanities. He sucked in a breath and said a little louder, “I deserved that.”

“Damn right you did,” Katie said. She shook out her hand and looked around at Neville. “Sorry, I had to. Jesus, that felt good.”

Draco wobbled his way to his feet. Remus took a step toward him. “Are you alright?”

“Uh. I think I'm bleeding.” Draco looked at the heel of his hand briefly then pressed it to his lip again. “Yeah, I'm bleeding.”

Draco let himself be steered out into the hall by a tutting Molly. Remus and Sirius caught each other's gazes. Sirius shrugged.

“Honestly through,” Dean said, “why the hell is he here?”

“His parents are in prison,” Hermione said at the same time Sirius said, “He's my cousin.”

Every head swiveled around to blink at Sirius. He crossed his arms. “Pureblood families. He's my cousin, the Weasleys are all my cousins, Neville and Harry are both distantly my cousins, Hannah's probably my cousin somehow.” Hannah looked a little startled. Sirius held his palms up. “Abbot is a pureblood family name. Anyway, the blond little git happens to be a relatively closely related cousin and I had room.”

“We're trying to domesticate him,” George said with a smirk. That got a laugh from the room.

By evening, Hermione had coaxed Draco back down to the party saying, “People are only going to forgive you being a vile little cockroach if they see you acting like a decent human being. Come on, we're going to play Bertie Bott's roulette with the twin's house rules. It's bound to be interesting.”

After the game of roulette, which resulted in a fair amount of retching, the partiers settled in for the night on the sitting room floor in a great, tangled nest made up of all the spare linens in the house. Luna had provided a stack of old quibblers and drinks had been procured for what was planned to be an until-everyone-passes-out-or-gives-up drinking game.

“Bed time,” Sirius said quietly and Remus nodded.

Remus showered and changed into nightclothes first, then sat up against Sirius's headboard—well, _their_ headboard at this point, feet tucked up under him, staring at the window while he waited for Sirius to come to bed. He didn't realize he was chewing on the knuckles of his left hand until Sirius crawled up next to him, pulled his hand away, and kissed at the reddened skin. Remus sighed. Sirius leaned up to kiss his throat. “Ready to talk about your visit to St. Mungo's?” he murmured.

“No.” Remus huffed, sighed again, closed his eyes, and leaned his head back 'til his skull hit the headboard. “You know how in school Frank was always telling us to shut up?”

“Well, he was mostly telling me and James to shut up, but yeah.”

“Once you and I started dating he was mostly telling _us_ to shut up.”

“Oh, yeah….” Sirius hummed.

“Today, once he realized who I was—Neville had to tell them, which, I mean, it's been nearly two decades—but once he realized who I was, Frank put his hand over my mouth. And it took me a minute to understand that he was telling me to shut up—he was making a joke.” Remus took a breath, his eyes prickling. “Once I got it, I started laughing and Alice looked at me and she signed—they've learned some sign language since neither of them can really talk—she did the sign for 'slow,' and she did it _really_ slowly. She was making fun of me.” Remus smiled at Sirius as he felt the first tears roll down his face. “They're still in there, Sirius. They're still _them_. They're just so, so broken.”

Sirius pulled Remus to him and petted his hair. Remus let himself cry into Sirius's shoulder. Eventually, Sirius whispered, “At least they're still alive.”

Remus gave a cold laugh, sat up, and wiped at his eyes. “I almost think James and Lily got the better deal.”

Sirius looked at him like he'd gone mad. “Don't say that.”

“I mean it.”

“At least they've had the chance to watch their son grow up.”

Remus bit his lip, nodded, and took a breath. “You're right.”

Sirius let out a breath. “It's good you went to see them.”

“You should come with me next time I go.”

“Maybe.” Sirius managed to tug the covers down without either of them really having to get up, extinguished the light with a flick of his wand, then lay down and wrapped his arms around Remus. “We'll see.”


	14. Chapter 14

In the morning, Sirius left to pick up Harry's present. Remus, Bill, and Charlie stood under the banner which now read HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY, each with a mug of coffee, watching in mild amusement as the teenagers—and Fred and George—woke up and blearily followed the smells of food down to the kitchen. Hermione's hair had been pulled up into pigtails that made her look like a spaniel, quite a few people had things drawn on their faces in what looked like eyeliner—a sloppy crown on Harry's forehead, a lightning bolt on Neville's, a mislabeled G and F on Fred and George's cheeks, cat whiskers on Draco—Luna was wearing three pairs of bizarre spectacles from different editions of the quibbler, and Fred had to summon his prosthetic leg from on top of a cabinet on the other side of the room before he could get up.

“Do we want to know?” Charlie asked his two younger brothers as they and Angelina passed.

“Well, we _were_ playing a Quibbler drinking game,” George said.

“But then one of the quibblers had instructions for a party game in it,” Fred said.

“And we just played that while varying degrees of drunk until everybody fell asleep,” Angelina finished.

“No one seems to have gotten _too_ drunk,” Remus noted.

The twins and Angelina all shook their heads and then went on down to breakfast.

In the now-empty sitting room, Carlisle hooted encouragingly at Crookshanks while the cat batted around empty bottles and discarded corks.

“No point cleaning up until after today,” Bill said.

“None,” Remus agreed.

“Good luck convincing Mum of that.” Charlie sipped his coffee.

Sure enough, by the time everyone had eaten and gotten the eyeliner off their faces, Molly had magicked the sitting room back into order. Crookshanks seemed rather disappointed—but then Harry started opening his presents and there were wads of wrapping paper to be played with, so the cat was placated.

“I've never had so many presents in my life. I'll have to work out where to put everything,” Harry laughed has he tore the paper off a tubular gift that turned out to be a rolled up poster showing the professional quidditch matches for the season. “Oh, wow, thank you, Katie.”

“It updates itself to show who's won as each match happens.” She beamed.

Sirius sauntered in just then, carrying a massive cage, housing an equally massive bird. He set it down in front of Harry. “Happy birthday.”

Harry stared. “What is that?”

“Her name's Jarnsaxa. She's a Blakiston's Fish Owl,” Sirius said proudly.

Jarnsaxa gave a short, deep hoot.

“She's _huge_ ,” Harry laughed bewilderedly. He opened the cage to let her out and she flapped up to perch on the back of the nearest chair, which tipped under her weight so she moved to the table, stretched her six-foot wingspan, and settled. Harry turned to Sirius. “Thank you,” he said earnestly.

Sirius smiled. “My pleasure.”

As Harry fawned over his new companion some more, then moved on to other gifts, Remus leaned to Sirius and asked quietly, “Why, exactly, did you get him an owl the size of a small hippogriff?”

“She needed to be distinctly _not_ Hedwig,” Sirius murmured. Remus nodded.

Over the course of the day, Harry and Neville's friends had to reluctantly excuse themselves in ones and twos and head home. By nightfall, only residents of Number Twelve and Neville remained. The Weasley children sans Percy, who was at his own flat, Harry, Neville, Hermione, Remus, Sirius, Draco, and Fleur were arrayed on couches or chairs or the floor in the sitting room, talking while Crookshanks batted around rubbish, all under the watchful eyes of _every single owl in the house_ perched atop a bookcase. Jarnsaxa had planted herself firmly between Euphrates and Pigwidgeon following another attempt by the former to eat the latter, and now Pig was pressed up against her side looking quite smug, inasmuch as an owl could look smug.

“C'mon, Charlie,” Fred was saying, “you've gotta have Finnigan beat! You work with dragons!”

Sirius leaned into Remus to whisper, “Five galleons says this turns into a contest.”

Remus snorted. “I'm not taking that bet.”

“I work with dragons, he blows himself up.” Charlie shrugged. “Besides, he's not here to compare to.”

George raised his eyebrows. “We blow stuff up too. You can compare to us.”

Charlie sighed. “You just want stories of me almost getting burned to death.”

“They're entertaining,” Ginny confirmed shamelessly.

“Fine, fine.” Charlie took his shirt off. “You know what this one's from,” he said, indicating the half-healed burn on his shoulder. “Then I got this one,” he nodded at a leathery patch above his other elbow, “a little before the World Cup in ninety-four—”

“Oh, we remember Mum giving you hell for it,” Ron said. To either side of him, Harry and Hermione nodded.

“Yeah, well, if she hasn't got an excuse to give me hell about my hair she's gotta find something. Fretting over my occupational hazards is better than hounding me about getting married.”

Bill leaned forward on his elbows. “Getting married doesn't even fix that,” he said sourly.

“She's started asking when we'll be 'aving children,” Fleur said over her glass of wine. She rolled her eyes.

Charlie grimaced sympathetically. “I'm never getting married.”

“Oh, don't worry, Charles,” George said dramatically. “We all know it's only a matter of time before some pretty young Swedish Short Snout catches your eye and you settle down.”

A wad of wrapping paper bounced off George's head, thrown by a glowering Charlie. Everyone but Charlie laughed. Crookshanks pounced on the paper. Fred flapped a hand at Charlie. “C'mon, scars, mate, scars.”

Charlie tossed his hands up. “Got too close to a nesting mum, startled a sub-adult, a baby was playing. They're all from dragons, it's really pretty repetitive. The rest of you have got to have more interesting stories. Like that.” He pointed at Harry's forehead.

Harry sat up straighter and opened his mouth to speak but George cut him off with a derisive snort. “The lightning bolt doesn't count anymore. It's old news, we've all seen it every damn day for nearly a decade, and he doesn't even actually remember getting it.”

“I do too remember!” Harry objected.

“You remember a flash of light and a scream, that's not really remembering how you got it,” Ginny said.

“Whatever,” Harry huffed. He crossed his arms and hunkered down in the cushions.

Ginny poked him in the ribs. “That's not your only scar, though.”

“Well, uh, there's this.” Harry held up the back of his hand. “Got it in detention with Umbridge.”

Fleur narrowed her eyes. “Is that words?”

Bill looked around at her. “Have you not heard about that? How did I not tell you about that?”

“Tell me about what?”

“The year after the Triwizard,” Neville began, “we had this horrible, mean, arrogant, old—”

“Bitch,” the twins provided.

“Well, yeah, this bitch,” Neville continued, “as our D.A.D.A. teacher. Only, she was useless, wouldn't teach us a damn thing. For detention, she'd have you write lines, which wouldn't be so bad except—”

“She'd make you use this quill of hers,” Harry said, “that I'm absolutely positive is some kind of dark magic. Instead of using ink, the quill carves what you're writing into the back of your hand so you're writing with your own blood. So now I have a scar that says 'I must not tell lies.'”

“I hate that woman,” Remus muttered darkly.

“She's rotting in Azkaban now,” Sirius said with something unsettlingly similar to glee. “The racist old cunt.”

“Right,” Harry said. “Uh.” He looked down at himself. “Snake bite,” he said, pointing to one arm. “Basilisk bite.” The other arm. “Then that one's from Wormtail cutting me with a knife. Oh, that's from quidditch.”

“Good to know at least _some_ of your scars are from normal things,” Bill said dryly.

“You're one to talk,” George said, reaching out to poke Bill's cheek.

Bill cuffed what was left of George's ear in retaliation. Fred casually put his bare brass and leather foot up on the coffee table. “We all know I win just for drama.”

George gave him a half-pained look.

Sirius shook his head. “That's not drama, that's gruesomeness. If we're going with drama, I think Remus wins.”

Everyone looked around at Remus expectantly. He crossed his arms. “No.”

Sirius nudged him in the ribs. “Just the one.”

Remus glared at him for several long seconds, then sighed, stood, and lifted his shirt to show the stretched out, ivory-pale, ragged-edged, sideways Vs that went full way across his abdomen and lower back. Neville and Hermione both looked at the floor. Fred whistled. Bill said, “Damn.”

“I was three,” Remus said shortly. He fixed his shirt and sat back down.

Things were quiet a moment. Draco huffed, rolled up his sleeve and held out his arm, pointedly not looking at anybody. His scar was the same shape as Remus's but comparatively much smaller. He rolled his sleeve back down and said, “And it's not a scar exactly, but I've got this little bump on my collarbone that I'm pretty sure's from my father catching me on the shoulder with his walking stick to tell me to stop walking as a kid.”

“That sounds like child abuse,” Charlie said.

Draco shrugged. “Pretty sure my father's got the same bump.”

“Just because it's traditional child abuse, doesn't mean it's not child abuse,” George said. Fred nodded, eyeing Draco.

Draco shrugged again. Ron cleared his throat awkwardly, tracing his finger along a faint white-ish line of scar spiraling up his forearm. “Can't really see them too well, but these are from those brains in a tank at the Department of Mysteries.”

Ginny frowned at the palm of her hand. “I have one that I don't remember getting, but I got it my first year so I _probably_ got it while possessed by Voldemort.”

Neville poked at his own cheek. “I got this for asking a Death Eater how much muggle blood she had.”

“Alecto?” Ginny asked. Neville nodded.

Hermione sighed. “It's really a wonder none of us are dead.”

“Tell me about it,” Fred said. He looked up at Sirius. “Hey, what about you? Ex-con, trouble maker, you've gotta have something.”

“Surprisingly,” Sirius said, “no, not really.” He shrugged. “I have a tendency to end up with bruises and broken bones, not cuts or scrapes that actually scar. I have got a bunch of prison tattoos, though. Not technically scars, but they have got stories.”

The assembled Weasley brothers shared looks, then Bill said, “It'll do.”

Sirius grinned darkly and started rolling up his left sleeve. “This's the first one I got,” he said, showing an abstracted phoenix just below the crook of his elbow. “Got it about three days in. The magic in it reacts badly if you've got a Dark Mark—burns you to death from the inside out. By all accounts, it's even worse if you're stupid enough to get the Mark _after_ getting the tattoo. There's a whole economy of trust built around these in Azkaban. Only a couple of guys in there do 'em, and they don't charge for it. This is about the only tattoo you can get for free in there.”

“There's not money in Azkaban, is there?” Harry asked.

“No, you pay for things other ways,” Sirius said cryptically. He bent his elbow to show the crude, thick ankh on the back of his forearm. “This is the next one I got. It's supposed to protect your soul, but it doesn't work too damn well. These,” he wiggled his fingers, indicating the runes scrawled across the knuckles of his right hand, “are actually pretty brilliant. They gather energy when I move my hand and release it when I punch something. Very useful in fights. Only problem is, they're a little sloppy so I end up breaking my fingers most of the time I actually use it if much's built up at all, so I have to let it off from time to time. These,” he leaned his head back to show the line of runes on his throat, “are for protection from poison and bad food. They fucking work, too. I mean, they have their limits, but let me tell you they make a world of difference when you're eating out of the rubbish.” He pulled back his hair to show a rune behind his ear. “That's for enhanced hearing. It's got nothing on being a dog, but it's not worthless. I'd show you the memory rune, but you can't see it through my hair—there's a rune that just about everyone gets after a while, goes right at the base of the skull so you've gotta shave a little patch of hair to get it. It helps you hold onto good memories.” He rolled up his right sleeve. “Compass rose on my wrist is for sense of direction, and this,” he smacked his forearm where it was banded by a chain-like design ending in an open link so it could be added onto, “is for strength. That one hurts like hell to get for some reason, it's gotta be the magic in it; the phoenix is in the same place, and it wasn't near that bad.” He shook his head, thought for a moment, then rolled up his trouser leg and rolled down his sock to show a delicate, snitch-like wing on his anklebone. “Got one of those on each side—they're for speed, or fleet-footedness, as the guy I got 'em from put it.” He unbuttoned his shirt, let it fall open, and drummed his fingers on the moon just below his right collarbone, which showed half full tonight. “Got this because I'm a great big sap, and I actually found a guy who could do decent looking tattoos. Would've been over my heart and even sappier except this needed to go over my heart.” He jabbed his thumb at the complex celtic knot on the left side of his chest. “It's for endurance. The shield on my solar plexus is for sturdiness—didn't know what that part of the body was called 'til I started asking after this tattoo.” He let his shirt fall off his left shoulder, baring the block of fluid text on his upper arm. “This is also because I'm a sap. It's from the Bible, but a really old version of the Bible—some kind of ancient Hebrew—it's a passage about King David and his mate Jonathan being devoted to each other and all that shit. Same guy did that as did the moon and the endurance knot. Last one!” he announced as he turned around and lifted his shirt to show a set of scales inked onto the small of his back. “That's for balance, and it hurt almost as bad as the strength chain.” He plopped back into his seat. “I was going to get a facial tattoo that prevents you from being recognized if you don't want to be, but then I saw you lot with that filthy rat in the paper and my plans got moved up so I didn't have time. Might be for the best—if that tattoo gets screwed up, no one can recognize you by sight ever again.”

“That would be bad,” Ron said.

“I can't believe I've never heard of this magic system before,” Hermione said.

Sirius shrugged. “It's limited to long term inmates. The number of people who are there long enough to become particularly aware of all the tattoos and what they do, who then return to the world and could potentially tell about it, is very small. And,” he added, “what few of us there are don't tend to talk about it.”

Hermione pressed her lips together and nodded.

A moment later, Neville caught sight of a clock, realized what time it was, and hurriedly gathered his things to go home. That heralded the breakup of the conversation and most everyone else drifting off to bed. Remus closed the bedroom door behind himself and Sirius. “That was the most I've heard you talk about Azkaban since you've been out.”

Sirius flopped onto the mattress. “The tattoos are the easy part.”

“Hm?” Remus sat next to Sirius, brushed aside his still unbuttoned shirt, and ran his hand up his chest.

“They're about getting out—they were always about getting out.”

“How's _that_ about getting out?” Remus asked as he poked Sirius's upper arm where the Bible verses were hidden under his sleeve.

“It's about you,” Sirius said simply and sat halfway up to kiss him.

Remus pulled back from the kiss. “Why'd you make me show them my scar?”

“I didn't _make_ you do anything,” Sirius objected. Remus arched an eyebrow at him. Sirius shrugged one shoulder. “It's the one you're not ashamed of.”

Remus took a breath and let it out. “Fair.” He closed his eyes and let Sirius run a hand up under his shirt and kiss his neck. “How'd you pay for them?”

With a decidedly unsexy groan, Sirius flopped back on the bed. “Moony….”

“I want to know.”

“No, you don't.”

Remus combed his fingers through Sirius's hair. “That bad?” he asked gently.

“No.” Sirius shook his head. “Not really.” He huffed. “I paid for a lot of them with sex,” he muttered.

“Oh.” Remus nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Sirius's gaze slid back over to Remus. “That's it? Okay?”

“What else am I supposed to say?” Remus propped himself against the headboard. “I'm not about to expect twelve years of celibacy out of anyone—if you expected me to be upset that you had sex with people in prison, I'm not. As long as you agreed to whatever you did…?”

Sirius sat up. “I did.”

“Then—” Remus broke off and shrugged. “Whatever you had to do to survive and to escape, I'm not prepared to judge you for. Anything that happened, that you need to talk about, to deal with, you can tell me.”

Sirius ran a hand over his face. “I'm fine, Remus. There's nothing.”

Remus sighed and scooted down the bed to take Sirius's jaw in hand. “You're lying,” he said definitively and kissed him. “But I won't make you talk if you don't want to.”

He got up to change for bed. A moment passed, then Sirius's shirt hit him in the head. He turned to give Sirius a questioning look.

“Not tonight,” Sirius said, undoing his trousers.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note on Sirius's language, mostly for the American readers!  
> In American English, calling someone a cunt is really harsh and really vulgar, it's the one word that American TV shows will still avoid even when they throw around the F-bomb like it's nothing. This is not the case in the UK--it's still very rude, but it's not nearly as extreme, it's more like calling someone an asshole.  
> A comprehensive explanation of this and more "divided by a common language" situations like it can be found at http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CountryMatters


	15. Chapter 15

“It's Polynesian.”

A thick book landed on the table in front of Sirius with a thud that made the surrounding breakfast dishes rattle. He looked up at Hermione, who was leaning over the book with a triumphant grin. “What?” he asked, mouth full.

“The tattoo-based magic system used in Azkaban.” She slid into a chair and started buttering toast for herself. “It's been adapted, obviously, but it comes from Polynesian magical tradition. The strength chain you've got is even still a Polynesian design.”

“Huh. Well, whadaya know,” Sirius mused. “How late were you up trying to find that?”

Hermione didn't answer, just shook her head and pulled her wand. “Accio coffee.”

Sirius laughed as the coffeepot sped down the table to her. Remus trotted in a moment later and kissed the top of Sirius's hair as he passed him on his way to the teapot. Sirius smiled after him. “You're in a good mood.”

“It's going to be a good month,” Remus said, pouring himself tea. He shrugged at the quizzical looks he was getting from Hermione, Draco, Ron, Ginny, and Harry. “Only two nights of full moon this month instead of three.”

“Well, that's good.” Ginny smiled.

“How do you always know these things?” Draco asked incredulously. “Without being reminded I lose track of what day exactly the full moon's even going to start on.”

Ginny mumbled something about stained underwear that elicited looks of confusion from the boys, nearly made Hermione snort her coffee, actually did make Sirius snort his orange juice, and earned an appreciative smack on the arm from Fleur, who'd just stepped off the stairs. Ginny waved off the boys with a throw away explanation of “girl problems.” Remus shook his head, ran a hand over his mouth, then composed himself. “Practice. Lot's of practice, and I took astronomy very seriously in school. I've looked at lunar calendars and studied moon charts so much that at this point I can do it in my head like most people can do dates.” He shrugged. “I do keep a calendar because it's easier to reference but—” he shrugged again, then sat next to Sirius, who was still cleaning orange juice off himself. “If you're not keeping a calendar, you should be.”

“I am,” Draco sighed.

“Please never live alone,” Ron said around his toast. Draco glared at him.

Breakfast continued in relative peace until Sirius decided it would be fun to mimic Ginny. She glowered at him. “Stop that.”

“Stop that,” he said back, grinning.

“I mean it.”

“I mean it,” he echoed.

“Sirius,” Remus said, trying to sound discouraging, but utterly failing because he was only barely managing not to laugh.

“You are a grown man!” Ginny stood and leaned on the table.. “Why don't you act like it?”

Sirius put his wand to his throat. “You are a grown man!” he said in her voice. “Why don't you act like it?” He broke out into giggles.

She gave him a dark look, then slowly and deliberately pulled her wand and put it to her throat without breaking eye contact with him. “Hey. Hey, Bella,” she began in Sirius's voice. “Guess what! While we were all in prison, I fucked your husband! And you know what? He liked it. He came on to me. Took real good care of him. He never even said your name. I think he said Narcissa's once.”

Sirius lowered his wand. “That's not funny.”

Everyone else in the room stared at him and Ginny. She crossed her arms defiantly. “Made you stop.”

“Uh, what the hell was that?” Ron asked.

Ginny shrugged. “He said it. I just repeated it.”

Remus glanced over. “Sirius…?”

“Yeah, I said it.” Sirius started eating again. “At the Department of Mysteries. To get under Bellatrix's skin, throw her off. Most of it's not true anyway.”

“What bits are true, then?” Harry asked, tone something between fascination and horror.

“Rodolphus _did_ come onto me,” Sirius said shortly. “In the middle of a fist fight. I told him no way in hell and punched him in the face again.”

“Well,” Remus said into his coffee, “I'd rather you distract her with that than be dead.”

“Exactly.” Sirius crammed toast into his mouth.

An unfamiliar owl swooped down the stairs and landed on the table in front of Remus, where it dropped a letter. Remus picked it up and turned it over curiously. “It's from McGonagall.” He gave the owl a bit of sausage while he opened the letter and read it over. “She's been working on getting the school ready to reopen.”

“There's plenty that needs to be done for that,” Hermione said. “Half the castle got blown up.”

“That's true.” Remus read on. “Oh, she wants to visit next week.”

Sirius shook his head. “I don't think it'll ever cease to be strange to me that the woman I spent a significant portion of my youth evading is now a frequent guest at my house.”

“Tell me about it,” Ron sighed.

Hermione shrugged. “Doesn't seem so strange to me.”

“Hate to break it to you, Hermione,” Harry said, “but you're a teacher's pet.”

She glared at him. “It's a product of Wizarding culture. It's so insular, we all go to the same school, children have the same teachers as their parents—”

“Sometimes grandparents,” Remus added.

Hermione nodded. “Right. So we all know the same people. It's inevitable that, as adults, we continue to interact with the people who held positions of authority over us as children, and only natural that the nature of those interactions would change.”

“I agree with her,” Draco said quietly.

Ron shook his head. Ginny poured herself more coffee. “I'll reserve judgement 'til I finish school.”

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of this chapter may be distressing due to discussion of trauma, reader discretion is advised.

After breakfast, Draco ducked out of the house without a word to anyone. He didn't need them fussing at him, visiting his father was going to be uncomfortable enough as it was.

The visitation room at Azkaban was bleak. Hands shoved in his pockets, Draco poked around the room awkwardly while he waited for a guard to bring Lucius. Even without the dementors' presence, the place gave him unpleasant chills. The door rattled open and he jumped. His father shuffled forward at the guard's prodding so the door could shut behind him. He was thin and dirty, his hair was lank and dirty, his clothes were threadbare and dirty. Draco nodded to him, eyes down. “Father.”

The next thing Draco knew, his father was hugging him. He froze with no idea what to do. After what felt like forever, Lucius pulled back and took his son's face in his hands. He brushed a thumb over Draco's cheek. “Draco….”

Lucius's sleeve rode up and Draco caught a glimpse of tattoos like some of Sirius's before his father pulled him into a hug again. After a minute, Draco cleared his throat and his father let him go.

“I haven't heard from you,” Lucius said stiltedly.

Draco gave an awkward half shrug. “I've been busy.”

“With what?”

“Uh, mostly housework,” Draco said. His father's eyebrows ticked up and he clarified, “Not at home. I've been living with mother's cousin.”

“Black?” Lucius asked incredulously.

“Yes.” Draco shifted his feet.

“Why?”

“I don't like being home,” Draco said quickly. “The house is too big when it's empty, it's depressing. And walking through the rooms, some of them, and knowing what's been done there is sickening. Besides,” Draco took a breath, “I keep track of the date better with people to remind me.” He looked away.

Lucius's shoulders settled back. “You've been getting your...medicine?”

Draco snorted. “That's most of why I'm living where I am.”

“Remus Lu—”

“Yes. He made sure there was someone who could make it since Snape's dead.”

Lucius eyed his son. “Who?”

Draco hesitated. “Hermione Granger.”

“Granger?” Lucius scoffed.

“Don't start,” Draco snapped.

“Draco!”

“What?” Draco demanded. “What are you going to do? Scold me for being impertinent? How? You don't have your wand, you don't have your walking stick. Should I go pick myself out a switch?” He laughed coldly. “I think we're past the point where you get to demand respect from me.”

Stunned, Lucius half whispered, “Draco….”

“You've ruined my life,” Draco muttered, the realization dawning only as he said the words. He laughed again, this time almost manic, and ran both hands through his hair. “You've ruined my life! My home is a crime scene, my parents are in prison—”

“Your mother—”

“Is in protective custody, I know, I know,” Draco sneered. “The only reason she's not rotting in here with you is she never took the bloody mark.” He yanked up his father's left sleeve and snorted as Lucius quickly yanked it back down. “She was right there the whole time, though. You and I and the entire wizarding world knows that's a technicality. She followed you right in, you dragged her into the middle of this shit. You dragged _me_ in!

“Because of you and the shit attitude you raised me with, I never made friends in school. Because of you and the vile excuse for a scrap of humanity you worshipped like a slave, I watched one of the closest things I ever had to a friend _die_ a horrible death. Because of you, I had a monster set on me! I was bit down to the bone! I could have died, I thought I was going to die, sometimes I think it would have been better for everyone if I _had_ died! You weren't there, you were locked up in here, you didn't have to see me screaming, covered in my own blood, in the worst pain I can possibly imagine. I'll never forget. I can't forget. It haunts me. And I relive it _every month_. And I will for the rest of my life.”

He grabbed his father's arm and yanked the sleeve up again, exposing the long links of strength band curling across his skin. “I know what these are,” he said as his father tore his arm out of Draco's grasp and stepped away. “I know what they're for. Sirius has them too, but you have more. Been getting into a lot of fist fights? No one likes a turncoat, do they? No one likes them outside, either. Because of you, I am one. You let me be made into a tool.” He spat at his father's feet. “You don't deserve my respect, you bigoted, racist, elitist son of a bitch!”

Draco sucked in a sharp, shaky breath. The quiet of the room rang loud in Draco's ears now that he'd stopped shouting. He realized vaguely that he was crying. Lucius stared at him. “I—”

“And Hermione Granger does not deserve your disdain,” Draco added, scrubbing a hand across his eyes.

Lucius folded his hands and looked at them. He didn't say anything. Draco went to the visitors' door, had the guard let him out, and left. He went back to London and went for a walk.


	17. Chapter 17

“Here you are,” Remus said, pushing open the door to the larder, where Sirius was waist deep in decades of collected junk and things put away for storage then forgotten about.

“Yeah,” Sirius said distractedly, sifting through boxes. “I think I found most of my old flat down here.”

“Which means you've probably found about a quarter of my old stuff, too.” Remus carefully picked his way over to Sirius.

“Mhm.”

“You okay?”

“Huh?” Sirius looked up at him. Most of his hair was pulled up in a scraggly bun, just a few shorter curls escaping to fall in his face, making the tattoos on his neck unusually obvious. Remus could even see the bottom of the memory rune at the base of his skull peeking through his hairline.

“Seems like Ginny really rattled you at breakfast.”

“What? Oh, that. I'm fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Remus, I'm sure.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.” Sirius gave him a severely unimpressed look.

Remus's lips twitched with a grin. “Would you tell me if you were?”

Sirius returned a crooked half smile. “No.”

Remus smoothed back Sirius's rogue curls and kissed his forehead. Sirius kissed him back and the two of them set to digging through the boxes, throwing away junk along the way. Remus uncovered a small, dusty trunk. “I think this is mine.”

“I think that was under my bed,” Sirius said, wading over.

“Do you know who got the things from your flat?”

“And brought them here? No idea.” He blew dust off the trunk, finagled the latch open, and let out a long breath. “Oh shit.”

Inside the trunk were at least a dozen photo albums, assorted trinkets, and a clock that had once stood on Remus's mantle. “Oh shit is right,” Remus agreed. He picked up one of the albums—a thin one bound in light blue satin—and let it fall open in his hands. There were Lily and James beaming up at them and waving in the summer sun, dressed for their wedding. James dipped Lily into a kiss. Remus shut the album. “Well, now we know where these went.”

“Yeah.” Sirius flipped through another album, this one full of muggle polaroids Lily had taken their seventh year at Hogwarts. He looked at Remus. “Should we tell Harry about these?”

Remus sighed. “Probably.”

Sirius went to find Harry while Remus set the fourteen albums out on the kitchen table. Sirius returned—shadowed by Harry and most of the rest of the house—just as Remus stooped to pick up a photo that had slipped out of one of the albums and fallen to the floor.

“What's that?” Sirius asked, nodding to Remus.

“Nothing,” Remus said with a casual shrug as he tucked the photo into his pocket. “Just dropped something. Harry, look here, we've found your parents' wedding album.”

“Really?” Harry hurried to the blue satin album Remus had indicated, closely followed by Ginny, Hermione, and Ron. He opened it to the first photo: Lily laughing in her high-necked lace gown, small green leaves fluttering down around her like summer snow.

“Oh, 'Arry,” Fleur cooed from across the table, “your mother is so beautiful.”

“She really is,” Ginny agreed.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. He turned the page to James under the same small-leafed tree, grinning and intermittently fiddling with his tie. The next page was the both of them. The next was all four marauders plus Frank, arms around each other, jostling James. Next was Lily and Alice tossing flower petals in the air, then throwing flower petals at each other.

“Sadly,” Remus noted, “I don't think there are any photos of the flower fight that broke out after that.”

“Well, no,” Sirius chuckled. “Benjy ran for cover and took the camera with him.”

“Does a flower fight really call for running for cover?” Ron asked skeptically.

“Yes,” Sirius and Remus said together.

“Things got broken,” Sirius added.

“Things like a vase, James's glasses, and one of Alice's shoes,” Remus continued.

Hermione smiled. “That sounds like so much fun.”

“It was,” Remus agreed with a chuckle as he reached for another album. He flipped it open and grinned. “Harry, it's your baby pictures.”

Ginny had snatched the album from Remus before Harry could finish saying, “What?”

The first few pages were actually all of an increasingly pregnant Lily. Unlike the wedding album, this one had three or four photos per page, on both sides of the page. One group of photos a few pages in included one of Lily asleep on the couch, her head back, a half-grown ginger kitten draped across her very round belly; one of James kneeling in front of Lily as she stood in the kitchen, smiling down at him and ruffling his hair as he pressed his ear to her belly; and one of a very thin and bedraggled looking, though much less grey, Remus sitting on the couch with Lily, head down, one hand on her belly while she sipped tea and arched an eyebrow him.

“I do believe,” Sirius said, “Remus is in the middle of politely begging you to wait a few days to be born in that picture.”

Harry looked up at Remus, who nodded. “That was, I think, the twenty-seventh. Your due date was the next day, which was still the full moon. You obligingly came three days late.”

“You're welcome, I guess,” Harry said. He poked at the picture with the kitten, which made its tail swish. “That's my mum's cat?”

“Yeah,” Remus sighed. “That's Aslan. Never did find out what became of him.”

“I have a theory...” Sirius muttered, but no one paid him any mind because Ginny had just turned the page and there were a half dozen photos of a tiny, angry, screaming, newborn Harry to pore over. After that, the pictures had more time between them: one here of Harry a few weeks old in his father's arms as James paced the kitchen, one there of Harry a few months old chewing on Padfoot's ear, so on and so forth.

Once they got through Harry's baby pictures, they moved on to the album of muggle polaroids, then to one that was mostly wizarding pictures of a teenaged Sirius perusing muggle shops.

“Did you take these?” Sirius demanded of Remus.

“I don't remember taking them,” Remus said, leaning over the album.

“Maybe Harry's mum took them?” Ron offered.

Sirius shook his head. “This looks like it must've been summer of '75. Lily and I were not friends yet. She was friends with him,” he gestured at Remus, “but she thought I was a git.”

“To be fair,” Remus said, “she was right.”

Sirius turned the page to a photo of him getting splashed as a car drove through a puddle, then making a rude gesture at the car as it drove away. “Moony, I think you must've taken these.”

“If that's summer of '75, I didn't get a camera until the next Christmas.”

Sirius rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Might've been James.”

Mrs. Weasley bustled in. “Hate to interrupt the reminiscing but I need room to cook. It's fish for dinner, if nobody minds.”

Hermione checked her watch. “I didn't realize it was getting to be dinner time.”

Harry looked around, forehead crinkling. “Is Malfoy back yet?”

“He and Arthur and Percy and the twins and Bill all got here within the past few minutes,” Molly said, getting out pans and things. She glared over her shoulder. “Get all that out of the way unless you want it to get food on it.”

Remus and Sirius took the albums up and stuck them on a shelf in the sitting room. Everyone else who'd been downstairs scattered, except for Harry and Fleur who volunteered to help cook.

As they headed farther up the stairs, Remus shoved Sirius's shoulder. “Go shower real quick before dinner. You're filthy.”

“It's just dust.”

“Sirius.”

“I'm going, I'm going,” Sirius chuckled and went into their room.

Remus carried on up the stairs to find Draco's door slightly ajar. He knocked on the doorframe as he peeked in.

“I don't want to talk about it,” Draco snapped darkly. He hadn't even looked around. He was changing shirts, his fingers fumbling the small, tight buttons.

Remus leaned on the doorjamb. “Okay. It's fish for dinner.”

“Fine.” Things were quiet for a minute as Draco finished struggling with his buttons, then finally tossed the shirt at the wall. He jabbed a finger at the crumpled pile of twill. “Is there a spell for that?”

“For what?” Remus asked mildly.

“Buttons.”

“Hm.” Remus tilted his head. “You know, I don't know. Probably. I'd ask Molly.”

Draco grabbed a new shirt and started doing up the much more cooperative buttons. He ran his hands through his hair. “Why am I still pissed off?” he muttered.

“I don't know,” Remus said. “What pissed you off in the first place?”

“I said, I don't want to talk about it!” Draco snapped again.

Remus crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at him. Draco huffed, mumbled an apology, and flopped dramatically onto his mattress. Remus tilted his head the other way. “Maybe you should go for a walk before dinner?”

“I've _been_ for a walk,” Draco huffed. “All over London. For hours.”

“Didn't help?”

“Does it seem like it helped?” Draco asked sharply, sitting up.

“For all I know, this is an improvement on your mood.”

“It's not.”

“Okay. Well, then, if you don't want to talk about it—”

“I don't.”

Remus shrugged. “Then I don't know what to tell you. Take a deep breath, maybe have some chocolate.”

“What is it with you and chocolate?” Draco demanded.

“I find most things are better with chocolate.” Remus held his palms up. “Smashing things can also help when you're angry.”

Draco stared at him. “What?”

“Smash something. Break it. Glass or ceramic. It's extremely cathartic,” Remus explained. Draco continued to stare at him. He shrugged again. “It's not like we don't have magic to put things back together.”

Draco shook his head and looked down at his fingernails. “If I'd ever broken something on purpose I would have gotten in so much trouble.”

“Well, you won't get in trouble here.” Remus grinned a little. “Hell, I got _cheered_ for tearing a priceless family portrait to ribbons.”

Draco blinked at him. “I guess you did.”

“Would you like to see if destroying some crockery improves your mood?”

Draco gave a noncommittal half shrug.

“I found an absolutely hideous cookie jar downstairs,” Remus said casually. “I think it's supposed to be shaped like a kappa but I suspect whoever made it had never seen a live one. Really, it would be a service to humanity to smash it.”

Draco made a great show of huffing reluctantly. “If you insist.”

Remus let Draco go out into the hall ahead of him, so the boy wouldn't see him grinning at his back.


	18. Chapter 18

With Arthur, Percy, and the twins having all made it for dinner, it was fairly crowded at the table. Percy was ranting frustratedly about work, and Fred kept shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

“Fred, dear, are you alright?” Molly asked, interrupting Percy.

“I'm fine,” Fred said, while Percy glowered.

“Okay, if _I_ can tell you're lying,” Bill said, “you know it's not going to fly with mum.”

“Tell her,” George said through a mouth full of chips.

Fred sighed. “My leg hurts places where there's not leg to be hurting. It's not bad, more frustrating than anything else, but I can't seem to do anything about it.”

Molly looked upset. Most everyone else looked at their food.

“Phantom pain,” Hermione said. Fred nodded. “My dad has a cousin who lost an arm in the Gulf War. Maybe I could give him a call, see if he has any suggestions?”

“I'd appreciate that,” Fred said.

“Muggle medicine—” Molly began.

“Is better than nothing,” George said firmly.

Molly lowered her gaze and nodded. Percy cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“Arthur,” Remus said, “isn't there something you've been meaning to ask Hermione?”

“Oh, yes.” Arthur wiped his mouth. “Hermione, I think you've heard me mention that we're establishing a new Muggle Relations department?”

“Yes.” She nodded.

“In the process of that we're creating a lot of new policy, and revising most of what we already have. Trouble is, we haven't got anyone working on that who's got much of any experience with muggle culture. So, how'd you like a job as an advisor, at least for the rest of the summer.”

Hermione blinked at him in surprise, then nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. I'd love to.”

“Wonderful.” Arthur smiled. “Honestly, Harry, the same offer's open to you, if you'd like.”

Harry shrugged. “I can do that.”

Arthur's smile widened. “Brilliant.”

After dinner, Remus and Draco choked down the potion Hermione had made earlier in the day, then everyone dispersed—Percy and the twins to their own flats, Harry and Ron to a game of chess, Hermione and Draco unexpectedly to the piano since they'd each discovered the other could play, and Remus and Sirius up to their room. Once the door was closed behind them, Sirius asked, “What did you pocket earlier? When everyone was looking at photos, what was it you picked up?”

“I knew you weren't going to miss that,” Remus muttered. He pulled the photo out of his pocket and handed it to Sirius. “As far as I know, that's the only picture taken at James and Lily's funeral.”

Sirius swallowed thickly. The photo showed the two glossy black caskets floating above the open graves in front of the Potters' shared headstone, one piled with red lilies, the other with deep purple irises. A braided bouquet of both flowers was draped across the stone. The gathered mourners were mostly obscured by a faintly jostling canopy of umbrellas shielding them from the rain, but Hagrid was easy to pick out by the color of his umbrella and his height. A raindrop periodically crept down the edge of the picture, where it had landed on the camera lens.

“Who took it?” Sirius asked quietly, voice shaky.

“I don't remember,” Remus whispered. “I'm there.” He poked at the photo. He sighed. “Figured the kids didn't need to see this right now.”

Sirius nodded and wiped his eyes. “Good call.” His forehead crinkled. “Hang on. Their funeral wasn't until the fifth, right?”

“Fourth.”

“Still. I got arrested on the second. The trunk of photo albums was at my flat, so how did that picture get with the others? Did you go to my flat?”

“No.” Remus crossed his arms and cocked his head. “I thought you'd murdered my best friends, I didn't want to go anywhere near your stuff.”

“Fair,” Sirius admitted. “But then, the question stands.”

“Whoever brought your things here must have put it with them,” Remus concluded.

“Who would have had that picture, who would have bothered to get my things, and been able to convince my family to _keep_ my things?” Sirius asked, dumbfounded.

“ _And_ been meddling enough to put that picture with the others,” Remus added.

“I'm tempted to say my brother, but I'm pretty sure he was already dead.” Sirius ran a hand through his hair.

“He was already dead,” Remus confirmed. “I can't imagine.”

Sirius looked back down at the photo, studying the gathered figures. A look of comprehension dawned on his face and he put a hand over his mouth. “Remus.”

“What?”

“Dumbledore.”

Remus mirrored Sirius's hand-over-mouth gesture. “He'd've done it.”

“I bet he did.”

“He's certainly meddling enough.”

“If anyone ever was, he was,” Sirius agreed. He went and put the photo face down in the bedside drawer. “I'm calling that mystery solved.”

“I think that's fair.”

“Don't you still need to shower?”

“I never got as gross as you, but probably.” Remus stepped toward the bathroom and started shedding his clothes. “What's your theory about Lily's cat?”

Sirius chuckled. “I didn't think anyone had heard me say that.”

“I did.” Remus threw his shirt at Sirius's face. “What's your theory?”

“Crookshanks,” Sirius said simply as Remus dropped his trousers.

Remus tilted his head. “Crookshanks?”

“I'm pretty damn sure Crookshanks is Aslan. He's the right color, and Aslan was part kneazle so him being perfectly functional at nearly nineteen years old isn't unreasonable. He smells familiar, and he trusted me the moment I showed up at Hogwarts as a dog. Aslan always liked me as a dog.”

Remus stared at him. “Crookshanks spent the entire ninety-three/ninety-four schoolyear trying to kill Peter. Ron kept fighting with Hermione over her cat trying to eat his rat.”

“Because he _knew_!” Sirius crowed while Remus started the water for his shower. “I swear it's the same cat.”

“I'll admit, I've never met another cat quite so comfortable sharing a house with werewolves.”

“Because he was around you as a kitten, I'm telling you.”

Remus shook his head. “Stranger things have happened. I'll believe it.” He stepped into the shower. “Why haven't you mentioned this before?”

Sirius shrugged. “It never came up.”

Remus pulled back the shower curtain to splash a handful of water at him. Sirius laughed.

 


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually one of the first chapters I wrote, I've been looking forward to catching up to it.

That Wednesday evening, after Hermione and Harry's first day at the Muggle Relations department, Draco, Hermione, Harry, and Ron were all sprawled across couches and chairs in the drawing room. Hermione, predictably, had her nose in a book. Unusually, the picture on the cover was stationary since _How to Write Nonfiction_ was a muggle publication. The boys were being less productive.

“Can I just ask one honest question?” Ron said, turning away from watching Harry try to balance his wand on the tip of his finger to look at Draco.

Draco gestured at him to go on.

“What was with your hair first and second year?”

“Oh, no.” Draco put his hands over his face and slid down into a laying position. “When I was small my hair was very fine and slick which meant it would fall in my face all the time. My father hated it, thought it looked undisciplined, but my mother wouldn't hear anything of shearing my hair short. _So_ they started slicking it back for me. I went off to school and didn't have the good sense to stop.”

“So you did that to yourself every morning?”

“Yes.” Draco sighed then sat up. “When did we become friends?”

“About the time you got your father's walking stick out of your arse,” Hermione said without missing a beat or looking up from her book.

Harry snorted. Ron grinned and kissed Hermione on the cheek. Draco rolled his eyes. “Feels a little strange that after seven years of animosity it's taken—what?—three months to get here.”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, “it is strange, you little git.”

Draco threw a pillow at him, which he dodged easily.

“Actually,” Hermione conjured a bookmark and stuck it in her book, “it sort of figures. Regardless of what we thought of each other at the time, we have a lot of shared experience, so there's a lot for us to relate to each other on. We went to the same quidditch matches, had the same teachers, rode the same train, had detention together that one time.”

Ron looked Draco over as though he'd never seen him before. “She's right, you are always just sort of there.”

“ _I'm_ always there? You've got to be joking. It's _him_ who's always there.” Draco pointed at Harry.

“No I'm not.” Harry frowned.

“Yes, you are. Let's take one singular facet of our school careers as evidence, shall we? Why we needed a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher every single year.”

“The post was cursed!” Harry objected.

“Which meant _something_ was bound to happen.” Draco leaned his elbow on his knee. “But think about what _did_ happen.” He held up a finger. “First year: 'So, Quirrel's dead, he and Harry Potter had a fight to the death over the Philosopher's Stone in the off limits upstairs corridor. Yeah, Potter killed him with his bare hands.'”

“Is that really the rumor that went around?”

“Harry,” Hermione said, “I'm not sure rumor is the right word given that that's exactly what happened.”

“Yes, that's what went around; and I'm far less surprised than I should be that it's the truth.” Draco shook his head and held up another finger. “Anyway, second year: 'Lockhart's in hospital with his memory erased because Harry Potter took him to the Chamber of Secrets.'” He held up a third finger. “Third year: 'Lupin quit. Why?—he's the least useless D.A.D.A. teacher we've had in ages. Yeah, Harry Potter went off after the escaped madman who's trying to kill him so Lupin went after Potter and did you know last night was the full moon because turns out Lupin's a bloody werewolf.'”

“That's not quite what happened,” Harry pointed out. “And what actually happened sounds less reckless and me-centric.”

Draco arched an eyebrow. “Do you think the rest of the school knew that?”

“Well, no.”

“Exactly. Fill me in on reality later.” He added another finger. “Fourth year: 'The Professor Moody we've had all year is a fake who only wanted the gig so he could put Harry Potter in the Triwizard Tournament. Potter found the real Moody in the fake one's office so now the fake one's been arrested and the real one's in St. Mungos.'” He held up his open hand. “Fifth year: 'Harry Potter allowed and may have encouraged a herd of angry centaurs to run off with her.' Need I continue?”

“No, no.” Harry sighed. “Your point is made.”

“It's easy to forget how weird our school years all were,” Hermione mused.

“First year wasn't particularly eventful for me,” Draco said, “given I wasn't running around hatching dragons and finding philosopher's stones.”

“Second year was scary for everyone, I think.” Ron sank down in his seat. Harry and Hermione murmured their agreement.

“There was a lot of in-house suspicion and distrust in Slytherin that year.” Draco picked some lint off his cuff. “Everyone thought their classmate was the one who opened the Chamber—it had to be one of us, obviously, it was our house's founder's monster.”

Harry gave him a look. “I thought everyone thought it was me.”

“They did, especially after that parseltongue bullshit at dueling club—”

“I didn't mean to do that, I swear.”

“It was creepy as hell and if you ever set a snake on me again I am going to hex you.”

“You're the one that summoned the bloody thing!” Ron pointed out.

“Only because Snape told me to.” Draco crossed his arms. “I don't like snakes.”

“Well,” Harry shrugged, “I don't think I can even speak parseltongue anymore and I definitely have no plans to set any snakes on you.”

“Good,” Draco said sharply. “But, yeah, after that everyone did think it was you, but everyone also thought there was no way it could be a Gryffindor. It was complicated.”

“I can hardly imagine what that all must have been like in Slytherin.” Hermione leaned on her elbows. “Must've been stressful.”

Harry scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Truth be told, I thought it was you.”

Draco snorted. “I think Crabbe and Goyle did too.”

“About that….” Ron looked at Harry.

Draco glanced between the two of them. “What?”

“Do you remember one time you found Goyle wearing glasses and he said he'd been reading and you said you didn't know he could read?”

“Yes.” Draco glared suspiciously.

“That was me.” Harry ducked his head. “Crabbe was actually Ron.”

For a moment, Draco just stared. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He stood and drew his wand which he gesticulated at Harry and Ron with. “The two of you _impersonated_ Crabbe and Goyle and used me to sneak into our common room? What the hell?”

Harry held up his hands in a settling gesture. “I thought you were the heir of Slytherin and were planning murder but we needed substantiating evidence. Didn't think it was you anymore after that.”

Draco scowled, conjured a flock of paper cranes which swarmed Harry, then flopped back onto his sofa. He watched a moment as Harry tried unsuccessfully to bat away the harassing origami, then flicked his wand and let the cranes fall to the floor. Ron inched away from one that had settled near his foot. Draco vanished the paper birds, still scowling. “How'd you even do it? Polyjuice?”

“Yeah,” Harry and Ron said together.

“Where did you get Polyjuice potion as goddamn second years?”

They pointed to Hermione who gave a sheepish smile. Draco ran a hand over his face. “Of course.”

“It seemed reasonable at the time,” Hermione said apologetically.

“Forget it.” Draco shook his head then leaned his chin on his fist. “How'd you keep them out of the way?”

“Put sleeping draught in a couple of little cakes and made sure they found them,” Ron said to the carpet.

Draco rolled his eyes. “That would be the way to do it, the dumb gluttons.”

Hermione frowned at him. “That seems like a rather harsh thing to say about your friends.”

“They weren't my friends. I don't think I ever even called either of them by their first names—it sometimes takes me a second to even remember what Crabbe's first name is and I only reliably know Goyle's because Gregory and Goyle start with the same letter. I didn't have friends. I had minions, groupies, and rivals. That's it.”

After a beat of silence, Ron said, “You're a depressing bloke sometimes, you know that?”

“Oh, I've got a vague idea, yeah.” Draco grinned facetiously.

A knock on the doorframe caused the four of them to look around. Sirius was standing in the doorway. “Fleur's roped Molly and Remus into spontaneous baking again. You lot going to want cookies?”

“What kind?” Ron asked.

“Various. Fleur and Molly disagreed and neither of their suggestions were chocolate, which Remus can't stand for, so now they're making I think five different sorts.” Sirius looked like he couldn't choose between frustration and amusement.

“I think we'd all appreciate cookies,” Hermione said brightly.

Sirius nodded. “I'll make sure you get some.”

“Thanks, Sirius.” Harry smiled.

“Though, on the subject of bizarre school years,” Draco drawled, pointing at Sirius, “almost all the eventfulness of third year can be pinned on him.”

Sirius let out a bark of laughter. “Don't blame me, blame the rat.” He went off down the hall.

“Just to be clear,” Draco said, “by rat he means Pettigrew?”

“Yes.” Ron pulled a face. “He was my pet rat for years, traitor.”

Draco sneered. “I always got the impression that if you could touch his soul, it'd be slimy.”

The other three made sounds of agreement and disgust.

“You know what you absolutely can't blame Sirius for, Malfoy?” Ron said with a slow grin. “You being a dumbass, insulting a hypogriff, and getting clawed for it.”

“That fucking hurt,” Draco spat.

Hermione looked unimpressed. “Madam Pompfrey fixed you right up and you kept moaning for weeks.”

“I will admit some of that was for show, I like attention, but it was still sore for several days. I've got a scar.”

“Bullshit,” Ron said derisively. “Let's see it, then.”

“It's mostly underneath the other one now.” Draco cradled his arm to his chest.

“Nevermind that, then.” Hermione hugged a throw pillow. “Fourth year was strange but until the end of the year it was a normal kind of strange, if that makes sense.”

“Yeah.” Ron rubbed his chin. “I see what you mean.”

Hermione grinned. “We even had a school dance. How mundane is that?”

“Except they made us learn how to ballroom dance,” Harry said. “I don't think most muggle schools require waltzing at their dances.”

Ron groaned and slid from the sofa to the floor. “Dance class with McGonagall was miserable.”

Draco shrugged. “I already knew how to dance and I'm pretty good so I didn't mind that, actually.”

Ron gave him an incredulous look. “Why the hell would you've already known how to ballroom dance?”

“The posh rich bastard act isn't an act, remember? I had lessons. Maths, English, etiquette, music, chess, and dancing. And they paid off, I didn't step on Pansy's feet even once, which is far more than either of you can claim.”

“I don't think I was that bad.” Harry crossed his arms.

“I could see both the Patil twins wincing from across the room,” Draco challenged.

“Pavarti did mention to me that you'd given her a bruise on the top of her foot,” Hermione admitted. “And Ron, Padma came very close to smacking you a couple times.”

Draco grinned smugly. “Guess I'm a better date _and_ a better dancer.”

“That's not fair,” Ron said. “I was pissy because Hermione was dancing with Krum and Harry was under a lot of pressure and stress from the Tournament—which you weren't helping with those damn badges, by the way.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Draco rolled his eyes. “If you were so crippled by jealousy and stress at the time, why don't you show me up right now?”

“What?” Ron balked.

“You and Granger are obviously together now, and Potter vanquished his main source of stress. _And_ none of us are wearing any kind of badges. All your handicaps are gone, so by what you said, you shouldn't be rubbish now.”

“We were never rubbish!” Ron nearly shouted. “I bet you're making up those dance lessons.”

“I'm not.” Draco grinned.

“Prove it.”

“Only if you prove your end.”

“Fine then.” Ron stood. Both Hermione and Harry dropped their faces into their hands.

“Fine.” Draco stood as well and magicked all the furniture save for Hermione's sofa and Harry's chair out of the way. “Do either of you from muggle households know how to work that thing?” He pointed to the rather battered console record player against the wall, stacked with Remus's collection of muggle vinyl albums.

Harry shook his head. Hermione gave the console a wary look. “I think my grandmother had one but all my family's ever had in the house is cassette players and CD players.”

Ron stomped out into the hallway and shouted down the stairs to the kitchen, “Lupin!”

A moment passed then Remus, shirt dusted with either powdered sugar or flour, stepped into view at the bottom of the stairwell. “Yes?”

“Come make your record player work. We don't know how and I think Malfoy and I just agreed to a dance off.”

Remus blinked, sighed, and mounted the steps. He passed Ron and came into the sitting room, dusting his hands off on his pants. “A dance off, huh?” He reached around behind the console to poke at something with his wand. “Dare I ask?”

“I don't think you want to,” Hermione said. She'd moved her sofa and Harry's chair to the side with the rest of the furniture and was now watching Remus twiddle with knobs.

“I didn't think so.” Remus straightened up, grabbed a handful of albums, and flipped through them. “What sort of dancing?”

“Ballroom,” Draco provided.

Remus hummed and grabbed a different handful of albums.

“Where did you even get all this?” Harry asked.

“Sirius. He'd spend the summer holidays trolling muggle shops buying me records because he knew I liked them and it was an easy excuse to piss off his mother. He got me the console for my twentieth birthday.” He flipped over a Queen album and read the back. “Ah, perfect. I presume a waltz is ballroom-y enough?”

“That's about as ballroom-y as it gets, I think,” Ron confirmed.

“Great.” Remus slid the record out of its sleeve, set it on the turntable, and fiddled with the needle until he got it to near the end of the song before the one he wanted. “Have fun.” He leaned on the wall.

Draco bowed dramatically and held a hand out to Hermione. “May I have this dance?”

Hermione glanced at Ron, shrugged, and took Draco's hand. He pulled her into a dance hold as the song started, pointedly ignored the dirty look Ron shot him, and began to waltz with her. A few steps in, he admonished her, “Stop trying to back-lead, you don't have to.”

Hermione took a breath, clearly trying to relax. “I don't think I've ever danced with someone who didn't need to be back-led.”

He twirled her deftly. “So you have to back lead Ron?”

“Well,” she hesitated, “yes.”

“Traitor,” Ron muttered, half joking.

Draco grinned, prancing around the room with Hermione with elegant grace.

“And Harry,” she said. She was very nearly clinging to Draco for dear life, fingernails biting into the back of his hand.

Harry huffed, rolled his eyes, then asked, “What about Krum?”

“Oh, definitely Krum.” She giggled despite herself. “I feel like I'm floating.”

“That _is_ the idea,” Draco said. “Do you trust me?”

“Not really, no.” Hermione shook her head. “I mean, it depends on the context—”

“Do you trust me not to drop you?”

“Oh. Sure.”

He pulled his hand from her grasp, lifted her by the waist like a ballet dancer, spun them both around, and set her on her feet again. She made a sound that could have been either delight or terror, then burst out laughing. It took her a moment to collect herself. “I've just realized, I've never danced with anyone who isn't a quidditch player.”

“And I'm both the only one who doesn't suck,” Draco twirled her again, then quickly changed the direction they were dancing, “and the only one who's uniform isn't red. Curious, isn't that?”

“Hey, correlation is not causation,” Harry said.

“Actually,” Remus chuckled, “he might be onto something. James couldn't lead to save his life. Lily made him practice their first dance for their wedding with her everyday for weeks. Sirius was never on the house team but he'd play backyard quidditch with James and he can't lead or dance backwards so he _has_ to be back-led.”

Harry and Ron shared a look. The song ended, Draco stepped back from Hermione, and bowed her toward Ron, whom she leaned against. “I love you, but I'm sorry, you dance for shit compared to him.” She dissolved into giggles.

Ron pet her hair and glared at Draco. “You win, Malfoy.”

“I know.” Draco grinned, ran his hand through his hair, then tugged down his left sleeve.


	20. Chapter 20

There was a great deal of hubbub when McGonagall arrived that Saturday.

“I'm never going to get used to this,” Sirius intoned from the back of the group crammed into the foyer. Remus elbowed him lightly.

“It's good to see you, too, Sirius,” McGonagall replied. “And you, Remus.”

“Out of the way,” Molly commanded, shooing three of her sons from in front of the coat closet so she could hang up McGonagall's cloak. “Would you like some tea, Minerva?”

“Yes. Thank you, Molly,” McGonagall said crisply. She turned to Harry, Ron, and Hermione. “I trust the three of you have been getting up to mischief,” she accused fondly. Without waiting for an answer she eyed the twins. “Though not as much mischief as I suspect the two of you have been engineering.”

“Oh, I'm just a little sad I'm out of school,” Fred said, tugging up the leg of his trousers. “I finally have a good way to sneak contraband in.”

McGonagall pursed her lips. “Well, I'm relieved to see you're taking that in stride, as it were.” George snickered. Draco rolled his eyes. McGonagall glanced at him and nodded an acknowledgement, then turned to Arthur. “I will, of course, want to hear from you how things are at the Ministry. I'm afraid I've been far too busy keep up with all the goings on. But first, Remus, I need to speak with you, if you don't mind.”

“Of course. Here.” Remus nudged people out of the way to clear a path to the hall. “We've gotten the sitting room usable.”

“I see you've painted,” McGonagall noted as she followed him to the sitting room.

“And replaced the carpet,” Remus added. They stepped into the room. One hand on the door, he gave her a questioning look.

“Go ahead and close it.” She settled herself in a chair and looked around at the blue-stippled walls. “I suppose it's been a busy summer for you, as well.”

“Oh, yes,” Remus agreed. He sat across from her.

The door opened and Molly came in with a tray of tea. “Here you are,” she said with a smile.

They thanked her and she excused herself.

“What have you been doing?” McGonagall asked, pouring herself a cup of tea.

“Cleaning up the house.” Remus sighed and took the teapot. “We found most of Sirius's old things down in the larder. As you saw, Draco Malfoy's staying here—according to George, we're domesticating him, which is almost right.”

“Am I correct in thinking he's here because you've secured a supply of Wolfsbane potion?”

“Yes. From Hermione.”

“I'm hardly surprised.” She sipped her tea. “That reminds me, I am sorry for the timing of my visit. I realize this is a rather inconvenient day for you.”

“It's really alright,” Remus assured her. “I appreciate you being cognizant, though.”

“If I had any other day free to make this visit, I would have.” She shook her head. “I've been—quite literally—all over the world this summer trying to re-staff Hogwarts.”

Remus frowned. “How many positions need to be filled?”

“We need a new Transfiguration professor because I cannot both be headmistress and teach. Even with a timeturner, I couldn't manage it. I've hired one of your old classmates for that post, actually. She was by far the easiest to track down.” McGonagall sighed. “Since we've lost Charity, I've had to find someone to teach Muggle Studies. I had a student in mind, but she'd gone to America and was remarkably difficult to find. I finally did hunt her down, though. Horace quit in no uncertain terms. The fellow I wanted for the job had moved to Russia. Finding him wasn't too much of an issue, but convincing him to move back….”

“Were you able to?”

“After a fair bit of bribery, yes,” McGonagall said proudly. “I only have one position left to be filled.” She sipped her tea.

“That's good.” Remus sipped his own.

“I was hoping, Remus, you might consider taking back your post as Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,” McGonagall said plainly.

Remus blinked at her in surprise. “Are you sure that would be well advised, given the circumstances of my resigning?”

“To be quite frank, I think most parents have more pressing concerns right now than one of their children's teachers having a few off days from time to time.” She set her tea down. “It's going to be a rather strange school year. We've had to push start of term back until start of October just so the school will be structurally sound by the time students arrive. Many students, I expect, will be taking the opportunity I'll be giving them to re-take the past year's level with a proper curriculum. The number of students is going to be uncommonly low as so many families have lost members, there are children who are tragically no longer with us and others who may prefer to spend time with their families, grieve, and regroup, rather than worrying about classes just yet. I've also decided not to bring in any new first years this year—children who would ordinarily be receiving their letters this month will be getting them next year along with those who would otherwise be a year younger.

“We're in a kind of limbo, Remus. We all are. And despite the difficulties of it, I think it important that Hogwarts be there for those children who want and need the comfort and normalcy provided by going to school. You're a good teacher, you're good with children—good at getting them to see their own strengths and potential, not to mention far better than I am at lending an ear and a cup of tea or pip of chocolate as you see fit.”

Remus stared into his cup and nodded. “You're right, it is important that Hogwarts be open.” He sighed. “Is there _anyone_ else alive and available who is equally qualified to take the position?”

“Honestly, no. Not even close.”

“Then I suppose,” Remus said slowly, “I'll have to accept.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's it for this story. Thank you all for coming along for the ride.  
> There is a sequel planned, but there's really no telling when It'll get posted.


End file.
